by Wendy Owens
“We should also contact Michael. He really needs to know we arrived safely,” Uri continued.
“Oh yeah, I saw him, too,” Gabe said as he remembered watching his mentor fall.
“What? Where? In your dreams?” Uri questioned.
“Yeah, in the beginning. It was weird. He had these huge white wings. Kind of crazy.”
“He was in angel form in your dream?” Uri asked.
“Yeah, I guess. Why?”
“Did anything else happen in your dream with Michael?”
“Not really. I guess. He was falling out of the air while screaming. Oh yeah, and one of his wings was bloody.”
“Darn it!” Uri shouted. “We need to call home right away. Michael could be hurt.”
“What? No. It was just a dream,” Gabe insisted.
“You and Michael are connected, Gabe. You have been since the beach.”
“I don’t understand. What does that mean?” Gabe asked.
“It means it might not have been just a dream. You could have been seeing a representation of what was actually happening,” Uri explained.
“So wait, if that’s true, then what Baal said about Sophie being his already might be true as well?” Gabe asked in a panic.
“Don’t worry, Gabe. We’ll get her back,” Uri reaffirmed.
A short, round man stood nearby, patiently waiting while the two boys discussed their urgent business.
“Excuse me,” Uri said, at last breaking the silence with the strange little man. “Is there somewhere we can go to try and call home? We need to check in.”
“Of course, sirs,” the man replied. “There will be phones in your rooms.”
“Oh, all right then,” Uri replied. He wondered why they didn’t have phones in their private rooms at Rampart.
The two boys eagerly followed the man down an old stone corridor. Gabe was impressed by the ornate architecture of the stone building. Rampart was simple and straightforward in its design. The decorative features at Rampart were highly detailed, but the actual structures themselves lacked the embellishment this place did. Iron Gate is an architectural masterpiece, he thought.
High ceilings arched up towards the heavens. They were so high it was hard to see the tops of them. The huge stone pillars were covered in carvings. They reminded Gabe a little of the carvings on the wood furniture in his room at home, but these were much more beautiful. The sheer volume of the carvings overwhelmed him. He couldn’t imagine how they ever achieved that detail in stone.
“This is a beautiful home you have here,” Uri said, trying to win some points with the guide. He simply continued walking without a word, giving only a slight nod of appreciation.
“So have you guys had any problems with demons actually getting into Iron Gate?” Gabe asked without hesitation.
Suddenly he felt a swift smack accompanied by a cracking sound on the back of his head.
“Smooth,” Uri whispered.
“What? We gotta ask,” Gabe replied in a hushed whisper as well.
“I am not sure what you mean, sir,” Alfred responded, not looking at the boys.
“Do any demons ever make it past any of your charms? You know, make it in the gates?” Gabe pushed.
“No, sir, never. We run a tight ship here. No exceptions,” Alfred replied, coming to a stop outside a set of old wooden doors. The doors had to be at least ten feet tall. Gabe wondered what kind of grandness awaited them on the other side. “I will leave you gentlemen so you can rest. Myself or a member of security will come and escort you when the time is appropriate.”
“Thank you, Alfred,” Uri managed to say just as the man began to walk away. They both waited until Alfred was out of sight before turning towards their room.
“After you,” Uri said, motioning towards the door.
“Fine,” Gabe muttered, pushing open the enormous doors.
As the doors swung in, the torches inside the room automatically lit themselves. The two boys could see the entirety of the massive room. The room was covered in white marble that had black spider-like webbing throughout it.
“Wow,” Uri said, mouth hanging open.
“I know, right? Makes home look like a shack,” Gabe put in.
“We should call Michael,” Uri said, remembering the urgency of the moment.
“So where is this phone we were promised?” Gabe asked, looking around.
Uri scurried around the room, frantically throwing open drawers and searching for the promised phone line. Looking behind a nearby chest, Uri located a cord and tracked it with his fingertips. He found a plug without a phone at the end of it.
“Apparently someone doesn’t want us to have a phone!” Uri snapped, enraged at being misled. Throwing the useless cord to the floor, Uri bounded to the exit.
Throwing open the door in a huff, Uri stumbled back just before he ran into the backside of a house-sized man. Turning around slowly, the guard stared at Uri intensely before growling, “Yes?”
It was clear Patina expected them to remain in their rooms based on the size of the man.
“Umm yes, well …” Uri said, trying to regain his composure. “Hello there, good chap,” Uri said before patting the guard’s chest. The guard did not seem pleased as his eyebrows sank and the corners of his mouth curled. Gabe chuckled to himself. He found it funny that the large man unnerved his friend so much that he was resorting to words like ‘chap.’
“We were promised a phone line, but apparently some mistake has been made. It appears our phone is missing,” Uri explained.
“Yes,” the large man replied.
“Well, I need to make a call!” Uri exclaimed. The man continued to stand there looking Uri up and down. “Well? It’s urgent!”
“Wait here, I will call for an escort.” The man leaned forward and closed the door before Uri could say another word.
“Wow, really warm reception,” Uri said spinning around, overwhelmed by his frustration.
Gabe gave a half smile. He wondered how he was ever going to help Sophie if these people were not going to help them.
“Well?” Gabe urged as Uri reentered the room.
“What?” Uri replied in a daze.
“Did you talk to him? Michael?” Gabe asked, slipping the few items he packed into a nearby drawer as Uri walked across the length of the room in silence.
With a dazed look on his face, Uri stopped when he reached the bed and rested on the edge of it.
“Uri?” Gabe said, attempting to snap him out of the trance-like condition. “Did you get to talk to Michael? How is everyone? Is Sophie all right?”
Still Uri said nothing, staring at the empty space in front of him. Gabe walked hurriedly over to him and waved a hand in front of his face, repeatedly snapping his fingers. “Hey, snap out of it!”
“Huh,” Uri muttered shaking his head as if the coma he was in was something he could physically brush off. “What did you say?”
“Is everything all right?”
“Not exactly,” Uri replied.
“Is it Sophie?” Gabe asked, his voice strained with panic.
“No, she’s fine,” Uri quickly put Gabe’s fears to rest.
“Is it someone else?”
Uri just nodded at first, not wanting to bring the situation into reality by verbalizing it. “Michael,” Uri whispered finally, unable to say the name at a normal volume.
“What happened? Is he ok?” Gabe asked, turning and resting on the corner of a chest of drawers.
“The trackers, they were on him as soon as he left …” Uri answered, his words trailing off and he continued to look blankly at the space in front of him.
“Uri!” Gabe exclaimed. “Is Michael all right?”
“Oh, yeah, I guess. The clerics have been working pretty hard on him and they say that he’ll pull through. But Haim said he was banged up pretty good.”
“Well, that’s good news, right? Michael’s going to be okay.”
“Gabe, he could have died! He went out
there on his own to protect us,” Uri shook his head, running his hands over his face and through his greasy hair. “I should have never let him do it. I told him not to go alone, but he said he didn’t want to risk the trackers reading anyone else and figuring out the plan.”
The two sat quiet for a moment; Gabe unsure what to say to comfort his friend and Uri stewing in his own frustration. “Darn it! It was a stupid plan!” Uri swung an arm around behind himself and his bag being the nearest object in reach, swung it across the room with as much force as he could muster.
“Uri!” Gabe cried, a little shocked by the display. “Look, you need to realize Michael wasn’t just doing it for us. He knew it was to help Dina, Raimie, and Sophie as well. Don’t lose sight of why we’re here. Do you want everything Michael did to be pointless?”
“Of course not,” Uri’s voice was suddenly free from the anger and now consumed with sadness. “I just wish I had been there to help him.”
Gabe gave Uri a pat on the shoulder. While he desired greatly to comfort his friend, part of him was also worried if Uri was going to be able to pull it together and do the job they were sent here to do. “He’s in good hands, he’ll be all right.”
Even though Gabe was also distressed at the situation with Michael, he couldn’t help but be relieved to find out nothing had happened to Sophie. His mind had instantly filled with fear when he saw Uri’s state.
“The sooner we figure this out and get back, the better,” Gabe added. “I’m sure Michael will rest easier knowing we’re home and everyone is safe.”
Uri nodded, “I’m getting pretty sick of waiting around here for when Madame Patina might be ready to talk to us. I think perhaps it’s time for us to do some investigative work on our own.”
“I couldn’t agree more, but how?” Gabe questioned. “She has stationed a guard right outside our door. There’s no way they will let us just roam freely around Iron Gate. She has made it more than clear she doesn’t like the circumstances under which we’re here.”
“Nothing says we have to use the door,” Uri said, his face shifted from a saddened hollow shell into one that reflected a mischievous grin. Gabe thought, nothing could probably take Uri’s mind off home except for doing something they weren’t supposed to.
“I’m up for whatever you have in mind.” Gabe shuddered as he watched Uri rush to the windows edge and peer over.
Gabe approached the window cautiously as Uri stepped aside, allowing his friend to get a good look. Without warning, Uri patted him so vigorously and hard on the back that Gabe lost his footing and tumbled forward, nearly out the window.
Gabe caught himself on the stone wall just before Uri bellowed, “You first, my friend.”
“Oh no,” Gabe said with a nervous laughter, backing up carefully. “I insist, it was your idea, you first.”
Uri leaned over for a second look and estimated they were roughly twenty-five feet up. Uri’s wheels were clearly spinning as he looked back and forth from the bed to the window.
“Oh no,” Gabe said. “I don’t think I like that look in your eyes.”
“Oh shut up and help me,” Uri said, giving Gabe a quick elbow to the ribs and a grin before bounding to the bed, stripping it of its linens. Gabe’s jaw dropped as he watched Uri begin shredding them into strips.
“Uri!” Gabe exclaimed. “We’re going to get in trouble.”
“Only if they find out,” Uri quickly retorted. “And really Gabe, do you care?”
“What has gotten into you?” Gabe asked, trying to hide he was somewhat amused by his friends sudden shift in attitude.
“Look, you’re right, we’re here to help our friends and the sooner we figure out who is behind all this, the sooner we can go home. Here,” Uri said, tossing the torn strips to Gabe. “Start twisting these together.”
Gabe did as he was instructed, handing each strip he braided to Uri who would then tie it to the end of the last. As they came to the end of the strips, they both looked at the tattered pile.
“Uri, are you sure this is going to work?”
“One way to find out,” Uri replied, securing one end of the home made rope to a leg of the bed and tossing the other one out the open window.
Gabe looked over the edge of the open window and seeing that their tattered, homemade rope was a good ten feet shy of the ground, he gave Uri a skeptical glare.
“We’ll be fine, you’ll see,” Uri insisted, grabbing the rope and giving it a stiff yank to ensure it was securely attached. “Ready?”
“I guess.”
“All right, you wait at the top while I climb down. Keep a look out and signal me if you see anyone coming,” Uri explained.
“Signal you, how am I supposed to do that?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Uri climbed out of the window, feet pressed against the wall, staring back in the opening at Gabe.
“Please be careful,” Gabe pleaded.
“I always am,” Uri replied with his famous sarcastic tone.
Gabe watched as his friend hoisted himself down the rope. Each foot closer to the ground he got, it seemed as though their knots might give way. Just when Gabe thought their sad equivalent of a rope could hold on no longer, Uri, hanging from the tip at the bottom, released his grip, falling the remaining distance. Though Uri came down with a thud, he quickly hopped to his feet, dusted off his bottom, and motioned a thumbs up in Gabe’s direction. Gabe did not find the action as reassuring as Uri had intended.
“Piece of cake,” Uri called up in a hushed tone. “Your turn!”
Gabe gave a big huff, and closed his eyes tightly. Please, just let me make it out of this alive, he whispered to himself and then climbed out the same window, mimicking Uri’s actions perfectly.
As Gabe shimmied down the old stone wall, he thought how Uri had made it look much easier. Once he had reached the halfway point, Uri called up, “Hurry, I think someone is coming!” Gabe looked down in a panic just in time to see Uri duck around a corner as a shadow approached them.
Holding his breath, Gabe didn’t move in hopes the passerby wouldn’t notice him dangling from the building. A few moments passed and he heard nothing. Just as Gabe was about to begin climbing down the rope again, he began to feel the connecting knots starting to slip and give way.
Gabe scrambled as quickly as he could down the frayed make-shift rope, but it was becoming quite evident he was not going to be able to beat the unraveling of the ropes to the bottom.
Seconds later, Gabe felt the knots let go and he began tumbling through the air. Gabe had no time to think as his body quickly moved towards the earth at rapid speeds.
“Levitis,” Gabe heard a young woman’s voice call out. It was as if a cloud swooped in and scooped Gabe up. When he at last opened his eyes, he saw he was floating just feet from the ground. Gabe glanced around and standing before him was a figure shrouded in a green hooded cloak. The person’s hand was extended towards him and as the hand lowered slowly, so did Gabe. Until at last he was resting on solid earth.
At first Gabe said nothing, still trying to process what had just transpired. Then Gabe lilted, “Thank you so much. We were just, uhh …” Gabe wasn’t sure exactly how to explain what he and Uri had been doing.
“We?” Came the same voice as the spell from under the dark hood.
Gabe glanced around and realized Uri was still hiding. “Come on out, Uri. I would say we’ve been discovered.”
Uri skulked out into the moonlight, head down, clearly not pleased their plan had already failed.
“I’m Gabe and this is my friend, Uri,” Gabe said, motioning over to his pouting partner. “I can’t thank you enough.
The girl took a step closer to the boys and slid her hood off, allowing it to drop to her shoulders. The girl was young; her skin had an unnatural golden hue to it. Her hair was almost white in color with just hints of gold that seemed to almost disappear in the moonlight. Her bone structure was petite as were all the features
on her face. Gabe thought how she almost looked elfish in appearance.
“Hi!” Uri exclaimed, clearly no longer pouting. Gabe looked over at his friend, surprised to see him staring at the stranger with his mouth gaping open wide.
“Hi, I’m Artis,” the girl said, giving Uri a slight smile. “You’re the Guardians from Rampart. Aren’t you?”
“Yeah, and you’re beautiful,” Uri said with a grin. Gabe was shocked at his friend’s behavior. He had never seen him act in such a manner.
“Uhh … Yeah, you’ll have to forgive my friend,” Gabe said, giving Uri a stomp to the foot. “He must have hit his head on the way down.”
“You know, we do have these great things called doors,” Artis said jokingly. “You guys should give them a try sometime.”
“Yeah, well we’re not exactly supposed to be out of our rooms. We would really appreciate you doing us a favor and keeping this quiet,” Gabe explained.
“We’re on a mission,” Uri added puffing out his chest. Gabe glared back at him, wondering what had happened to his friend.
“I know why you’re here. I actually was coming to talk to you guys,” Artis replied, ignoring Uri’s attempt to impress her.
“You were?” Gabe asked.
“Yeah, I was one of the people working in historical artifacts the day your friends came to retrieve the runes,” Artis continued.
“Oh wow, then you’re exactly who we need to speak to,” Gabe added, thrilled with their luck.
“I’m afraid so,” Artis replied. “The problem is that I came in contact with those same artifacts as did half the people in my department and none of us are showing any signs of this illness that has struck your friends.”
“No …” Gabe said distraught, shaking his head, refusing to accept the possibility they were on the wrong path. “That can’t be. It’s the only link.”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you except for what I witnessed. We were in possession of the artifacts for weeks before your people arrived and we didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary then or since.”
