The Prince Warriors

by Priscilla Shirer

  The wide middle gate led to a pretty cobbled road, lined with trees and flowers, which stretched over several hills. There were gardens and waterfalls and green mountains, and far into the distance, sitting on a cushion of clouds between the mountain peaks, was a magnificent, sprawling castle.

  The sky was clear blue but dotted with odd-shaped objects where clouds should have been, although these things didn’t look anything like clouds. They were more like big, floating, grayish-purple rocks.

  “The house on the hill!” Brianna said, pointing. “Well, it’s more like a house on a cloud than a hill—and that house is more like . . . a castle! Isn’t it beautiful? And that was in my instruction. I’m supposed to go that way!” She lurched toward the middle gate.

  “Wait!” Xavier said, reaching out to block her path. “We’re supposed to follow the armor, remember? ‘Follow the Way of the Armor’ . . . whatever that means.”

  “How do we do that?” asked Levi. “Is it going to talk or something?”

  The kids looked at their breastplates, as if waiting for them to speak.

  “So what’s it saying?” Evan asked. “Can you hear anything?”

  Levi and Xavier shook their heads.

  “Well, I know I don’t want to go that way,” Brianna said, pointing to the darkened street to the left. “Looks kind of—haunted. And I’m definitely not going back into that sand again. So, there’s only one choice.” She inched toward the middle gate.

  “I agree with her,” Evan said. “I mean, why would Ruwach give us this armor and then send us right back into a storm that these two barely made it out of?” He gestured toward Brianna and Levi.

  “So what are we waiting for?” asked Levi. “Let’s go!”

  Suddenly the orb on Levi’s breastplate started spinning, the words inside tumbling out so he could see them hovering in the air before him:

  The gate to destruction is wide,

  and the road that leads there is easy to follow.

  The kids read the instruction slowly, carefully, each of their eyes darting from the message to the options before them.

  Xavier pointed to the middle gate. “That looks pretty wide. I don’t think we’re supposed to go that way.”

  “It doesn’t make sense to choose either of those ways,” Levi said. “Just look at them!”

  Xavier looked—Levi was right. Both options looked pretty uninviting. He took a deep breath.

  “Lean not on your own understanding,” he said. “It’s written right above there, see?”

  “That’s true,” Brianna said thoughtfully. Just then the orb on her breastplate began to spin, glowing faintly.

  “Hey, look,” said Evan. “Your armor is doing something.”

  She looked down, straining to see. Then she looked back at Evan. “Yours is doing it too.”

  They stared in astonishment as both orbs projected a beam of light into the space between them. Particles of light began to dance, twirling around each other until they reorganized into an image: the image of the dark city street that lay through the gate to the left. Then suddenly the image broke apart, the light retreating back into the orbs.

  “Whoa,” Evan said softly. “I think it wants us to go that way.” He pointed to the left gate.

  “That way?” Brianna asked, making a face of horror. “That can’t be right.” She rapped on her breastplate a few times, hoping a new picture would appear. But it didn’t.

  “I wonder if we’re all supposed to go that way,” Xavier said. “We probably should stay together—” Just then Xavier’s orb did the same thing, projecting an image into the air in front of him: the gate with the storm. He looked back up at the gate on the right. “It’s telling me to go that way.” His shoulders slumped in dismay. “You too.” He pointed to Levi. Indeed, Levi’s armor was projecting the same image.

  “What? No way!” Levi shook his head. “Nuh-uh! Not me. I’m not going back in there.”

  “But we have armor now,” said Xavier.

  “This armor? You think this is going to protect us from that?” He looked around at the others, who only shrugged, betraying their own doubts about the armor. Levi shook his head. “No way. I’m going this way. Catch you on the flip side.” He turned and headed for the middle gate.

  Brianna grabbed his arm. “Levi, I don’t think you should—”

  “Don’t worry about me. I’ll be in that fancy castle, probably eating an ice cream sundae by the time you guys get there. Have fun!” He approached the gate carefully, took a deep breath, and glanced back at his friends one more time. Then he turned, straightened his shoulders, and stepped over the threshold to the other side. It looked to the other kids as if he had passed through an invisible curtain, the scene of the cobbled road swallowing him as he vanished through it.

  Evan rushed over to the middle gate, gazing at the empty scene in awe. “He just—disappeared!”

  “I hope he’s going to be okay,” Brianna said, clearly worried.

  “Maybe Levi’s right,” Xavier said. “Maybe we should just go with him. It does seem like the right way. And maybe we don’t know what these pictures really mean . . .” He stopped, his eyes suddenly drawn to the words over the storm gate:

  Lean not on your own understanding.

  Well, it didn’t really make sense, but this was what the armor was telling him to do. He sighed. “I guess I have to go that way.” As soon as he said it aloud, he felt something open in himself, a new certainty arising: Yes, this is the right path.

  “Then I guess we have to go through there,” said Brianna, indicating the gateway to the old city street. “It’s so dark. And wet. And . . . old . . .”

  “The old path!” Evan said suddenly, like a lightbulb had come on in his head. “Maybe that’s what the instruction meant! Follow the old path!”

  “Paths of old, not old path,” corrected Brianna.

  “Same thing!” Evan said. “It said if I go down the old path, it’ll be peaceful or something, right?”

  “It said you would find peace,” said Brianna.

  “Well, close enough.” Evan marched toward the gate, then stopped and turned. The bright look of confidence on his face had faded already. “So—you coming or what?” he said to Brianna.

  “Yeah, I guess so.” Brianna sighed deeply, throwing back her shoulders, preparing herself for the worst.

  “Hey,” said Xavier. Brianna turned to look at him. He was startled by the bigness of her eyes—they were dark brown but sort of sparkly, like the rest of her. He felt his face flush and hoped she didn’t notice. “Just watch out for my little brother, okay?”

  “I can watch out for myself!” Evan said. With that, he spun around and plunged through the gate. It appeared that he, like Levi, had passed through a curtain and was gone.

  “Don’t worry,” said Brianna, smiling at Xavier. “I got this.” She gave him a thumbs-up then turned, took another deep breath, and strode resolutely through the gate after Evan. She disappeared too.

  All alone now, Xavier looked down once more at the picture floating on his breastplate. Just to be sure. It hadn’t changed. The storm. He looked again at the serene middle path that led straight to the castle on the cloud.

  “Maybe I’m crazy,” he said with a sigh. He walked up to the gate on the right, gazing out at the violent wind, the swirling sand so dense it looked like a thick, dark fog. He straightened, took three huge breaths, shut his eyes, then plunged through the gate and into the storm.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Walking on Circles

  Levi ambled along the cobblestone path, enjoying the warm sunshine, the gentle breeze. It was pretty sweet in Ahoratos, he thought. The sun shone; it was not too hot, not too cold. Around him butterflies fluttered. At least that’s what he thought they were, although they didn’t really look like any butterflies he’d ever seen before. They were
as big as birds, their huge lustrous wings changing color as they flew. They landed on the trees and flowers that lined the road all around him, beating their wings slowly. As he moved along the path they moved too, following his progress, hopping over each other and landing on flowers and tree branches on either side of him. He had a strange feeling they were watching him. After a while he became unnerved by their constant vigilance. He rushed over to a group of them and waved his arms as if to scare them off. They fluttered a bit, but as soon as he returned to his walking, they returned to their watching.

  He tried to forget about the butterflies, concentrating on the castle that lay ahead. It looked more fantastical than Disney World. Maybe there are rides, he thought. And food. He was feeling a bit hungry. Ice cream would be good. Cookies ’n cream. Slathered with hot fudge and whipped cream on top. That would hit the spot.

  The castle began to appear as though it was made of frosting and candy—he shook his head, sure his eyes were playing tricks on him. It was pretty, though, shimmering on its foundation of clouds, nestled between the tall, hazy, green mountain peaks. He couldn’t help but think of Brianna, wishing she had come with him. If she had, she’d likely be making friends with the butterflies and dreaming up a wild story about what was going on in the castle, a story which might include fairies playing dodgeball with gumdrops or racing each other on rainbow-colored unicorns.

  The butterflies kept watching him.

  Sweat dripped from his brow. He was getting tired from walking so far. How far had he walked anyway? He had no idea.

  Wish I had my skateboard.

  His boots felt heavy and hot. Despite their ventilation strips, there didn’t seem to be any air flowing through them at all. He sat down on a tree stump by the side of the road to take them off. He threw them aside and stretched out his legs, wiggling his toes. Much better.

  He stood up—the cobbled path felt cool and uncharacteristically smooth under his bare feet, not rough and bumpy like he expected. That was strange. It was, after all, a stone path. But maybe everything in Ahoratos was kind of perfect—even the cobblestones didn’t hurt your feet. Awesome.

  He glanced down at the tree stump he’d just been sitting on. Something nagged at him, a certain unnamed doubt, settling on his shoulders. He looked around at the path, the sky, the trees, the butterflies—and then back at the tree stump. Hadn’t he seen that tree stump before? He remembered, because it had looked like a bear cub from far away.

  He walked on for a while in his bare feet, carrying the boots, one in each hand. Another tree stump came into view. He stared at it. Bear cub—exactly the same as the last one. And the flowers surrounding it—hadn’t he seen those same flowers around the last tree stump too?

  The nagging doubt grew even heavier. His eyes darted about, searching for some clue—that was when he realized that all the trees were exactly the same as well. Maybe they’d been planted that way, he thought. In a design.

  But that tree stump . . .

  He was imagining things. It couldn’t be the same. He looked up at the distant castle on the clouds. Weird, he thought. He didn’t seem to be getting any closer. He’d been walking for hours already—at least it felt like hours—although he couldn’t really tell, because the sun hadn’t moved in the sky. Maybe it was only minutes. But he was so tired. And the kingdom was still just as far away as it had been when he’d started out.

  Something moved behind him. A person? An animal? He whirled to look, but it was gone.

  He put down the boots and then reached out to touch the tree stump. It felt smooth and hard, no rough edges, no animal teeth marks, no scent of sap or pine like the stumps in his backyard at home. In fact, this stump looked a lot like the artificial apples his mother kept in a basket on their kitchen table for decoration. He remembered trying to take a bite out of one of them and being shocked when he’d discovered it was plastic.

  The realization hit him like a two-ton runaway truck.

  Plastic? This tree stump was fake?

  He gazed around him once more, his heart racing as it slowly dawned on him that everything he was seeing in this world, everything, was made of plastic. He touched the trees, the flowers, all fake. He could feel a breeze, but the leaves on the trees didn’t even rustle. The only thing that moved were the butterflies. He wondered if they might be fake, too, like those mechanical butterflies he’d seen online when he’d been shopping for new skateboards. He put down his boots and walked over to one of them, slowly flapping its wings as it sat on a fake flower. He reached out to touch it—

  “Ouch!”

  A sharp pain shot down his finger. He pulled it back quickly and looked close—a welt was starting to form. Since when did butterflies sting? His finger really hurt. He shook his hand out, trying to shake away the pain. The welt puffed up and turned red. Like a bee sting—he’d once gotten a bunch of those when he and his friends thought it would be a good idea to throw baseballs at a beehive. He remembered the painful welts all over his arms and neck, the swelling and itching. This sting felt worse than all of those put together.

  Thankfully, it stopped hurting pretty fast, faster than a regular bee sting anyway. But as he looked at his finger, he saw that the red welt was turning purple. The skin around the wound felt tight, like it was—hardening. It couldn’t be forming a scar already, could it? The purple turned to a deep, dark gray. He touched the callous surface forming on his skin—it was cold and hard like . . . metal.

  Levi’s heart raced, and he felt a knot of fear in the pit of his stomach. The butterfly was still fluttering, watching him. Its wings seemed to be changing color—the bright red and yellow and purple hues dissolving into dark gray, the same color as the welt on his finger. The wings seemed to change shape, the soft, graceful edges becoming bent and jagged. It was almost as if the butterfly was turning into metal as well.

  The butterfly continued to watch him. Then Levi saw dozens of tiny red beams of light, flashing like lasers from its eyes.

  A shiver crept up Levi’s spine and curled around his neck, making him shudder. Fear whispered softly in his ear, as if the butterfly itself were speaking: you’re trapped.

  He backed away slowly while the butterflies began swooping around his head. They lit on the trees and flowers around him, their wings—no longer full of color—beating slowly. There was something definitely very wrong about them. The more frightened he felt, the calmer they appeared, as if they were just waiting—for something.

  Levi walked faster and faster. He wished he had his skateboard! Then he was running, but still he didn’t seem to be getting anywhere. The castle in the distance stayed very far away.

  It was like he was running in a circle.

  Or on a circle.

  He stopped, panting. He stared down at the stones under his feet. He took a step, and another. He was moving forward and yet he wasn’t. He suddenly thought of a circus performer he’d seen once, balancing on top of a huge ball. The performer ran, making the ball spin, but he didn’t really go anywhere . . .

  Levi started walking fast again, his feet too sore now to run. He couldn’t remember where he’d left his boots. He’d put them down when he went to investigate the butterfly, so they must be by the tree stump. But when the tree stump came around again, they weren’t there. He wondered if he should go and look for them—but he had no idea where to begin. No matter where he went, he didn’t seem to get anywhere at all. The view ahead of him never changed. He wondered if it was real or just a picture, like a backdrop in a play.

  He stopped walking. There was no point in walking anymore, he realized. It was clear that he wasn’t moving forward. But perhaps if he went backward, he would somehow get back to the gates where he’d first started with the others. Maybe Xavier was still there. He had been having a lot of trouble making up his mind about which way to go. Levi could tell him what he’d discovered, that maybe the way through the storm was the
right path after all.

  He felt better, having a plan in mind. He turned and started walking back. Maybe he’d find his boots along the way. But the same thing happened. The view never changed. He never got any closer to where he’d started. There was no gate anymore.

  He was trapped.

  No, I can get out of this. Ruwach’s not going to just leave me here, is he?

  He wasn’t so sure about Ruwach. After all, he still hadn’t even seen the dude’s face. Maybe he was some kind of evil spirit, disguised as a helpful guide, and it was his intention all along to trap him in this miserable place. Didn’t evil things dwell in caves? Like trolls?

  He’s not a troll. Evan had been so sure about that. But what did a little kid know anyway?

  “Okay, Ruwach, if you can hear me, which way do I go now?”

  No answer. He looked down at his breastplate. It was dark. The orb didn’t spin. He hit it a few times with his fist, to see if he could jump-start it. Nothing.

  Mom, Dad . . .

  Were they worried about him? Was his dad still at the Rec, waiting for him? Maybe they didn’t even know he was missing. The sun hadn’t moved—maybe the time wasn’t passing back in his world. His world. He wondered if earth existed anymore. He wondered about the other kids, too, and which way they had gone. Were they stuck somewhere too?

  As he stood there, thinking about what he could do next, he felt the ground under his feet shift. The tremor was slight but enough to grab his attention. He stood as still as possible, wondering if any movement might cause more trouble. Several seconds passed as he waited. For what, he had no idea.

  Silence.

  Maybe it was nothing. He raised one foot to take another step. But he couldn’t move it. He looked down and gasped. His bare feet were slowly disappearing into the cobbled road, as the road itself melted away.

  He raised his head and called out: “Help!”

  But his plea echoed back to him, unanswered.