by Gabi Moore
They clapped their hands for joy and poured into the ground as they took liquid form. Dion watched the water return to the desert and wondered what would become of the world if every young man knew he could have a companion of such beauty.
When it was the salamanders’ turn, Dion realized they were the same fire elementals who’d caused him such trouble in the mall. They stood there with folded hands until the cymbal players quit clanging their instruments together.
“We are sorry if there were any misunderstandings,” their designated leader said. “We were only doing what we knew how to do to protect our own interests. Know that you will always have our support in the future.”
“All misunderstandings are in the past,” Dion told him. “Let’s move onto the next level.”
He watched as the salamanders burst into flames. The individual fires merged together and rose to the sky in a series of pillars, which were soon blended into the sky in a rainbow of brilliance. Dion sat there and watched the fires turn into flaming rockets as they rose higher than the solar boat chasing after the sun bug. The flames reached up to heaven and soon were beyond the visual range.
“But you know,” Dion said as he turned to Mr. Jehuti, “this still leaves one more series of elementals which I need to reach. And I have to encounter them tomorrow. What form will they take?”
“The aether elementals have the form of a sphinx,” Mr. Jehuti explained. “They are ferocious and the ancient pharaohs used them to guard the tombs and treasure. For some reason, they disappeared in your circle of time and the remains of the kings of Egypt were plundered. That has not happened here. Come with me. It is okay to leave your friends alone for a moment?”
Dion turned and looked at them. Lilly was playing with the ring he gave her. Sean shrugged.
“I don’t see as there will be a problem leaving them here,” he told the newsstand owners.
The couple came over to him. Each took a separate hand. Dion flew across the sands of the desert. He flew across the Nile River and passed more barges with building material headed up the river. They passed over the sands where the traders rode their camels across the hot sun to deliver their goods to the remote settlements across the Northern African landscape. The colors melded into endless patterns of yellow and red. This was not the same smoke-filled polluted landscape you would find on Earth, but an entirely new place that was outside the realization of normal humans. Dion closed his eyes and felt the wind rush on his face as he flew along with the couple who carried him aloft.
“What are you?” Dion asked them. “Are you from Mt. Olympus too?”
“No,” Mrs. Jehuti told him. “We are from another place. We are from the Abode of the Blessed. It’s the same idea for a different class of immortals.”
Soon a vast necropolis rose up on the ground before him. The couple who held him flew down to circle around it, as they searched for a particular location.
Dion could see many of the tombs below him were intact, although there were a few locations, which were crumbled into dust. For some reason, this vast tomb complex was not plundered like the ones back home. Dion felt they were about to show him why this was as the two found a large tomb and began to circle it. Satisfied, they swooped down to the ground. When the ground was beneath their feet, they let loose of Dion and allowed him to relax for a few minutes so he could see the landscape in front of them.
“Where are we?” he asked.
“Where you always wanted to be, Dion,” Mrs. Jehuti said. “The very place where history began. Here it stays the same. Every day the sun raised in the sky in the form of a solar ball pushed by a small beetle and pursed by a holistic boat. The civilization stays the same.”
“What did you want me to see?” he asked her. “There has to be something important here or you would not have brought me to this location.”
“I want you to see what you will encounter when you go into that tower tomorrow. You need to see what sort of creatures are found in the aether. This is one of the deadlier ones, I admit, but you need to be aware of the worst that can happen. It has been my experience that the worst that can happen is the worst that normally does happen.”
They walked to the tomb, which rose high in the necropolis. It was night for some reason. They had left in the middle of the afternoon, but the place where they now stood had no relationship to time. It could be any point in the past or present, as in this time circle, all were equal. Dion heard the sand whisper at his feet as they slowly walked to the tomb.
Around the tomb was a short wall. It was more of a line of desert plants that grew in a definite pattern around the tomb. The tomb itself was nine feet high and ten by ten feet at the base. It was covered with intricate hieroglyphs, which displayed important events in the life of the court noble who’s been entombed thousands of years ago. Dion couldn’t tell how old the tomb was since the dry weather made the degradation of the tomb a slow process. If it were a wet climate, he would be able to notice the crumbling stone and moss which grew across the walls. But here, that was not a factor in the destruction of the tomb.
They stopped at the hedge line and waited. Dion wanted to ask them what they were waiting for, but he had an idea they would soon find out.
There was a loud thump as a large object fell off the roof of the tomb and landed in front of them. It wasn’t easy to see what it was in the dim light of the moon and Dion was forced to strain his eyes to get a better look. The object rose from the sands and looked up at them.
At first, he thought it a lion. The creature stood on four legs, but it seemed to be made of the parts of four or five animals. To his shock, Dion realized he was staring at the face of a human. It was a human head but it was attached to the body of a lion which had wings folded across its back.
“Do you wish to enter?” it asked him. “You are welcome to enter the tomb and abscond with whatever treasure you might find. However, to do so you must answer the question I put to you.”
“What happens if I don’t want to enter the tomb?” Dion asked it.
“Then you may go in peace. I encountered you before you sat foot on my territory. You are not my responsibility.”
“And what happens if I do want to answer the question and am proven wrong?”
“That is so very simple,” the creature said. “I get to eat you.”
“I’m not interested in entering your tomb.”
At that moment, Mr. and Mrs. Jehuti stepped up to the level of the hedge line and spoke. “Hello, Frank,” they said to the sphinx. “We wanted you to meet Dion. Dion, this is Frank the Sphinx. He’s guarded the noble’s tomb for the past three thousand years.”
“Why hello to you too,” the sphinx replied. “I wondered what this youngster was doing running around by himself so near to my line of control. He didn’t have the look of the average tomb raider.”
“What does the average tomb thief look like?” Dion asked. The sphinx was busy pawing the ground.
“Oh the usual,” it said to him. “Desperation. Hunger. Fear. It takes a combination of all three for someone to work up the courage to get past me.”
“Has any one ever made it past you?” Dion asked him.
“Not since I’ve had this job. Every few years some idiot thinks he can get past me. I’ve had people show up with dictionaries and scrolls to look up my challenge questions. They never succeed. I’ve been at this a long time and do my homework. I like my work and intend on keep this position. The contract won’t run out for another two thousand years. I plan on staying here as long as I can.”
“How has the valley been since we were here last, Frank?” Mrs. Jehuti asked him. “It has to be, what, five hundred years since we were here the last time?”
“About that. I lose track of the years. If I didn’t have to punch a time clock I’d forget how many hours I put in each week.”
“Someone else watches the tomb to spell you?” Dion asked.
“Oh, no, just me, but they want me to keep track of my hour
s just the same. I think someone down at the central office keeps track of the hours I put in so they can do some kind of rate study. The bean counters will always end out on top. They keep telling me I need to be more efficient in my work, but I don’t know why. There hasn’t been an intrusion attempt in the past hundred years.”
“What about the other tombs,” she asked him. “Any problems as far as they are concerned?”
“Not really. We had a break-in last month when some fool decided to go in for the treasure in a pharaoh’s tomb. The tried to use some kind of battering ram. I sat outside and watched it all come down. These casual break-ins relieve the monotony. You always know when they are about to happen, because the local thieves will start to show up and cruise around the outside of the valley trying to find an entrance point. I’m sure they have plenty of information on what’s inside here. They keep it in a library or something. Each year one of them gets a little bit closer to a horde and it forces us to keep up on what they’ll try the next time. Every now and then, a civilization falls and they go back to zero. But they’re clever enough to keep trying. I give them that; they never do give up over the years. I suppose a fortune for an emperor or is enough to tempt most people. Keeps me employed at least.
“Do you know of anyone who’s come around lately trying to get the guardians to break contracts and work for them?” Mr. Jehuti asked him. “We think someone has hired a bunch of your kind to work for him in our time circle. I wanted Dion to meet you because he needs to know what he might run up against.”
“You sure know how to pick your targets, kid. What is so important that you need to go up against one of us?”
“My uncle is holding my parents prisoner to keep me from interfering with his plans. He’s also kidnapped the Aether Elemental Grandmaster. I have full powers on four of the five elements. My uncle has the fifth, but he lacks any of the elements prior to it. I need to rescue the fifth elemental grandmaster so I can obtain the power of it and rescue my parents.”
“Tough assignment. Good luck. Humans don’t last very long when they run up against us. I hope you have a good memory because we always pull that “question” trick before attacking. Gets them every time. I only know of one case where someone answered correctly and he was an outlier. You have any aether abilities?”
“No,” Dion said. “Power over the aether is the one ability I don’t have. I don’t think it’s a natural talent. I’ve never heard of anyone having that ability.”
“You have a task ahead of you I don’t envy,” Frank said and turned to the Jehutis. “Hey, this chat is nice, but I have to get back to work. Come by before the next five hindered years are up, could you?”
“What do you have to return to?” Mrs. Jehuti asked him. “I thought you said no one is stupid enough to break into your tomb.”
“Okay, you caught me. There’s a game on tonight. The company got me a TV to relieve the boredom and I’m a Cincinnati Reds fan. Johnny Bench is looking very good this year. The Big Red Machine might make it to the pennant.”
“We’ll stay in touch,” Mr. Jehuti told him and the couple took Dion by each hand.
Dion found himself airborne in seconds and the tomb retreating in the background. The moon was high in the sky as they flew over the sand. Soon the sun returned to the sky and they were coming down to the same location he’d left before. Dion’s three friends waited for him as they touched down on the ground.
“That was fast,” Sean told him. “Where did you go?”
“We went to see a friend I thought Dion should meet.” Mr. Jehuti said. “He can tell you about it later.”
“Do you want us to send you back to the mall where we took you?” Mrs. Jehuti asked him. “Or would you like us to advance the clock a little bit and deposit you by the van after sunset. I can’t think of any reason you’d want to spend more time in the mall, unless you need the hours to plan.”
“Drop us off at the van after sunset,” Dion said. “Do you know where it’s parked?”
“In that groove of trees. I don’t think it’s been disturbed. Any other boons you’d like?”
“Just give us our clothes back. These are appropriate for the environment of the desert, but back home they’ll think we have escaped from a costume party.”
“We can manage that with no trouble.”
The light began to fade again and Dion found the area around him became very dark. Once again, the light returned and this time they were deposited right next to the van, just as he requested. Dion looked around and found himself with his three friends. They were back in the same clothes they wore before they left the desert. Dion breathed easy since he didn’t need the explanation about the change of clothing to the parents. The immortals took care of it before, but even an immortal from Olympus or the Abode of the Blessed could make a mistake.
Dion went over to the van and checked it over from the outside. From what he could tell, it had not been disturbed.
“Well, that was a fun trip,” Emily told them. “When do we get to do it again?”
“Hopefully, never,” Dion said to her. “I hope they’ll never have cause to pull us out again. You didn’t get to see the creature I might encounter tomorrow.” Dion briefly told them about the meeting with Frank the sphinx.
“Yeah, that sounds more than I want to deal with myself,” Sean told him. “Say, what is that noise?”
Chapter 15
In the background, they could the sounds of a party in progress. There were voices of young men and women mixed with laughter. They looked at each other and walked through a side trail to see what was happening down by the banks of the creek.
They walked through the underbrush and pushed trees and saplings out of the way, as they wandered in the direction of the noise. Sean saw them first: the chess club hanging out with the Naiad sisters. He almost stumbled over a Naiad kissing her boyfriend on the ground. Dion and friends made their way to the scene of happiness as they walked down the embankment and to the shore of the creek. There was a bonfire, which blazed on the bank next to the water, and several of the chess club members where enthralling their girlfriends with daring tales of brilliant move where they captured queens and took knights from their opponents.
“No kidding,” one young man told his girlfriend, “there I was. I was playing the best guy they had at Stivers and he had me cornered. By all accounts I should have lost that one and been sent home with my tail between my legs. But he didn’t know that I had a few tricks up my sleeve he didn’t know about. Boy, you should’ve seen the look on his face when I castled right in front of him.”
“So you beat him?” the Naiad asked him. She was back to wearing a tracksuit. It was still a bit cold to cover them strictly with hair.
“Well, no, he surprised me too. I should have realized he had some tricks too that I didn’t know about. Still, when I saw the look on his face, it was worth it.” She leaned on him and placed he slender arm around his shoulders.
“Nice to see you, Dion,” the club president said. “We’re thinking about getting a present for you. As you can see, our lives have changed for the better since the girls came into it.”
“I’m glad to have made a difference. Have you talked to them, told them about the world in which you live?”
“We’re working on that.”
“You just do that,” Dion told him and looked at the scene before him. He still couldn’t believe the sight he saw. All guys who hadn’t had a date and were about to graduate high school. And there were more water nymphs who wanted boyfriends. How did he get himself into these situations?
“So where have you been all day?” the club president asked him. “We haven’t seen much of you either. Not that we’ve been bored as you can see.”
Dion shook his head. Right now, all he could think about was his parents imprisoned in the clock tower and the sphinx who guarded it. How many sphinxes were in that tower? Was there anything else from the aether in that place? He needed to focus on rescuing the
grandmaster that was in there too. But nothing could stop him if he won this final round.
“So how long do you think this party will go on?” Dion asked Ken, who was one of the chess club guys who was at the party.
“Probably all night. The guys showed up a little bit ago and they’re having the time of their lives.” That minute one of the Naiad sisters appeared and grabbed him by the arm.
“Baby, I’m lonely,” she said to him as an arm snaked across his back.
“You’ll have to excuse me, Dion,” he said to his friend. “You might notice I have something else to take care of right now.”
Dion stood there with Lilly and watched as the two of them walked off and went down by the creek. They sat in the shade of the firelight and watched the stream flow gently down the banks and into the buried culvert. The school year would end soon enough and the chess club members would be attending college. How it would all work out with the Naiad sisters was something Dion didn’t want to think about. There would be many things to work out after this week, but right now, he needed to think about how he’d get into the clock tower tomorrow.
It was a long day. He’d been across the burning sands with his friends the Jehuti’s and met a sphinx named Frank. Lilly and he would be married eventually. What had made him give her the ring? He didn’t know himself, but it seemed the right thing to do and she’d proven to him this week she had the meddle to stand by him when things became bad. He really didn’t need college as his powers were almost complete, but they might someday desert him and he needed to be ready for the day. He could go far in life, but the elemental abilities might be a burden on him someday. He needed someone to be there for him, should he rescue his parents and obtain the fifth elemental power.
“So I hear you are now a fire master?” one of the Naiads said to him. She stood next to her chosen and held the young man’s hand. All this young love was touching, even to Dion.
“The powers were given to me just a few hours ago,” Dion told her. “At least I don’t have to worry about fire elementals making a run at me in the future.”
