by John Corwin
She wiped tears from her eyes. "I thought you died, Conrad! It looked like they vaporized you on the spot."
My forehead pinched. "Wait, what?"
"You were gone for several seconds. The guardians fired these beams into the bridge and then you reappeared." She shuddered. "What happened?"
"I saw Moses, and the primal fount—or at least the fount of Eden." I could hardly believe it had happened, but I told her everything. "Somehow he gave me control of the guardians. I'm going to take them out there and destroy the monster army."
Ambria kissed my cheeks, my lips even as tears dripped from the tip of her nose. "I love you, Conrad. I'm so happy you're not dead."
"Me too, but did you just hear what I said?"
She nodded. "Yes, I'm happy about the guardians, but life would be awful without you."
I sat up and unwrapped the frogre tongue from my jeans. Ambria helped me to my feet and we limped toward the crack leading to Queens Gate. The guardians trailed behind me like dogs on leashes. I felt my mind connect to the sentience inside the miniature stars.
"Go through the tunnel and wait for me on the other side."
Voices whispered at the back of my mind. We are of the rift. In the rift we remain.
My chest tightened. But I need you to fight my enemies.
We cannot leave the rift, the voices said in unison. Here we must remain.
My face must have fallen because Ambria's forehead pinched with concern. "What's wrong?" she asked.
"They can't leave the rift." I wanted to throw up my hands, but was too tired. "They can't fight the monster army."
She offered a tiny smile. "Well, I guess you need Cora after all."
I looked up at the guardians and sighed. "Why can't it ever be easy?"
Ambria chuckled. "I don't suppose we could trick Victus into bringing his army here?"
"I wish." I looked at the long expanse back to the other side and groaned. "I'm so tired, I don't know if I can make it back."
Ambria looked up at the guardians. "Maybe they can carry you."
I connected with them again. Can you carry me back across?
Energy laced around my arms and hoisted me into the air. Before I could say a word, the guardians flew across the rift at breakneck speed. I might have screamed if my throat hadn't locked up from fright. They deposited me gently on the other side and hovered nearby.
"Conrad, you left me!" Ambria waved from afar. I sent the guardians to get her. She shrieked when they lassoed her and brought her to me.
"Well, at least we've got this going for us," I said.
Ambria hugged me and sighed with relief. "It's so very strange."
I looked up at the pulsating orbs. What's out there in the void?
Other worlds. They spoke in cold, calm unison.
"Are you talking to them?" Ambria asked.
I nodded. "I want to know more about them."
Her eyes widened. "If the Glimmer anchors all the realms together, I wonder if we could reach Seraphina through the rift."
My hopes rose. "That's a wonderful idea." I sent the question to the guardians. Can I reach Seraphina through the rift?
You may reach the outer bounds.
You mean like the wall? I walked to the crack in the stars, the tunnel leading into the Glimmer, and patted it with my hand. Like this?
Yes.
I asked the next questions out loud so Ambria could hear. "How do I break through the outer bounds?"
We do not know.
"Can you take me to the outer bounds of Seraphina?"
If you know which one it is.
I threw up my hands and relayed the information to Ambria. "I'd have to know which one is Seraphina and figure out a way to break through the wall."
"Perhaps Cora knows how to locate each realm." Ambria pointed her finger straight up and drew a circle as if to draw the anchor stone. "After all, they orbit the anchor stone."
"I wonder if I could reach the realms by flying up to them with a broom." We'd theorized about it before, but had never tested it.
"For now, I suggest we take one thing at a time." Ambria took my hand and locked her eyes on mine. "Let's talk to Cora."
I nodded. "Yes, let's." I stretched my arms and legs. They felt every bit as heavy as they had moments ago. "I'll have to go slow." I looked up at the guardians. "I don't suppose you can heal me or give me more energy, can you?"
We guard.
I waited for more of an explanation, but none was forthcoming. "Okay. Don't let any monsters through here, but if you see Kanaan, he can come."
A vision of the magitsu master flashed into my mind's eye. This man may pass.
"Yes." I took Ambria's hand. "Let's go."
We entered the crack. The tunnel beyond was much larger than I remembered it. I ran my hand along the etches and grooves in the tunnel wall. "It looks like something dug at the walls."
"The tunnel on the Eden side looked the same way." Ambria knelt and picked up the tip of a broken claw. The greenish hue gave it away. "A frogre did this."
I found several more broken claws. "More than one." My stomach tightened. "How did frogres get over here?"
"Victus somehow got into the Glimmer during our quest for the Broken Relic." Ambria dropped the claw fragment. "Maybe he still has access."
"I was in the Glimmer only a year ago, and the tunnels didn't look like this." I sniffed the air for telltale signs of frogre stink, but only sensed a musty odor. "You saw what the guardians did to four of those monsters. How could any of them slip past?"
"Victus must have a piece of the anchor stone," Ambria said. "He used it to come through the reflected world and bypassed the guardians."
"But why?" The question might as well have been rhetorical, because I immediately knew the answer. "He planned to invade the Glimmer with his army."
"He'd be a fool to even try." Ambria slowed her steps to keep up with my leaden pace. "Cora controls every living thing in the Glimmer. Even ten thousand of Victus's monsters can't fight that."
We reached the end of the tunnel and stepped into what should have been a forest of crooked trees. Ravaged earth and ash met us. Piles of bones lay in rusting armor. A warhammer nearly the size of my body rested atop the crushed skull of a huge condor skeleton.
Ambria gasped. "This place is a graveyard."
"Victus invaded." I slowly climbed atop a boulder for a better view. The devastation continued for hundreds of yards in all directions. "Maybe this is why Cora blocked me out of the Glimmer. Maybe she didn't want me to see this. Or maybe she wanted to keep Victus out."
"Maybe." Ambria surveyed the damage from my side. "Victus's monsters didn't get very far."
The path we usually followed was gone, replaced by a trail of bones. In the distance, a giant tree bridge rose from the barren land. It arced out across the starry expanse and should have met another tree of the same size leading to the next land fragment. Instead, it ended in splintered wood.
"The bridge is destroyed." I slumped in defeat. "How are we supposed to reach Cora?"
The crooked peak of a mountain rose in the distance and above it hung a giant green moon—the anchor stone. Somehow, we had to reach that mountain.
"We'll find a way, Conrad." Ambria looked around. "Maybe the invaders had flying brooms or carpets. We should look."
I couldn't tear my eyes from the moon. "I hope so."
Sparkling like a crown of jewels, the various realms orbited the anchor stone, held together by its magical gravity. The aura of the moon granted immortality, but it also slowly robbed emotion. Evadora countered the effects of the moon with a bottle of emotions she harvested during her frequent visits to us at the university.
I wondered if she still had it, or if she'd succumbed.
I finally looked back at Ambria. "I don't know why frogres would have flying carpets, but let's look, just to be sure."
We wended our way through the maze of destroyed trees and charred bones, our progress considerably s
lowed by my exhaustion. I had to stop several times to rest, but Ambria didn't complain once. We found the bodies of mages and even the remains of several flying carpets, but they'd been shredded to ribbons.
We reached the base of the tree bridge, large enough to accommodate several city buses side by side. A small grove of crooked trees and the scaly red snake grass at the bottom of the tree bridge had survived the monster battle
I slumped beneath a tree, exhausted and defeated. "We have to go back to Eden and get a flying carpet."
"How will we get past the monsters waiting on the other side?" Ambria looked around, eyes pinched with worry. "There must be a working carpet here somewhere!"
Bark creaked. Sharp limbs speared the ground around us and in an instant, the crooked trees held us in a prison. Ambria drew her wand, but coils of snake grass gripped her arms and pinned them to her sides. More coils secured my arms against my ribs. Purple vines, their thorns glistening, snaked toward us. I knew from experience they would instantly put us to sleep.
Ambria struggled uselessly. "What's happening?"
I surrendered to the grass, too tired to make a fight of it. "We're Cora's prisoners." I smiled. "Maybe she'll come to us instead."
I felt a prick in my neck and the world faded to black.
Chapter 30
Something poked me in the chest. I blinked open heavy eyelids and found a teenaged girl standing over me. Long green hair framed huge amber eyes and silver skin. A gentle breeze brushed back the hair to reveal pointed ears. Her gossamer dress flowed around her like silken clouds.
Evadora looked so much older now. She was every bit as pretty as before, but a flat line replaced the girlish grin and the light in her eyes dimmed to a dull stare. The color of her eyes shaded darker until the irises turned greenish gray. "Conrad."
I swallowed a lump in my throat. Evadora's wild spirit had been tamed by the moon. "How are you, Evadora?"
"Mother told you not to return."
"Because of the battle?" I looked down and was surprised to find my arms and legs were free. Ambria was asleep. A vine thorn pressed against her neck told me it was not by choice. I stood and was surprised to find my legs had regained some strength. Physically, I felt much better than before the grass trapped us.
"Victus invaded." Evadora turned to face the ravaged land. "Many innocents died that day, so Mother decided closing the Glimmer to outsiders was best."
I reached out a tentative hand and touched her arm. Her usual feverishly warm skin was cool to the touch. "Do you still have your bottle?"
"Mother said it was time to forget the ways of the outside and focus on our needs." Evadora looked at my hand without a trace of emotion. "You feel warm. I do miss the warmth of the sun."
"I need to speak with Cora." I took her hand. "Can you take me to her?"
"No." Evadora pointed to a speck against the stars. "Mother comes to you."
I swallowed nervously. "She won't harm us, will she?"
A green eyebrow arched. "Why would she harm you?"
"I mean, she's not like Naeve now, is she?"
"She was Naeve before her reflection took her name." Evadora squeezed my hand ever so slightly. "But she does not go by any name but Mother now."
"Not even Glimmer Queen?" I asked.
"She cannot break the sleep spell Naeve put on the people," Evadora said. "Who is there for her to be queen of?"
I looked back at Ambria. "Can you wake her?"
The purple vine with the thorns withdrew. Ambria's eyes fluttered open. She yawned and flinched when she saw Evadora. "Oh my, Evadora, you've grown!"
Evadora tilted her head curiously. "Have we not all grown?"
"You're beautiful!" Ambria hugged her, but the other girl simply stood there. Ambria backed up a step. "You look so much like Cora."
I looked past the green hair, the silver skin, and the huge eyes and saw some resemblance to her mother. But it wasn't enough to immediately remind me of her.
A condor with the wingspan of a small jet plane appeared from the starry sky and screeched like some prehistoric creature. Its wings flared and it landed gracefully in a clearing free of broken trees and bones.
Cora walked down the bent neck of the condor, her flame orange hair flying in the wind, green eyes reflecting the twilight like those of a cat. She wore a simple white dress that reached to her ankles and barely moved in the wind. My breath hitched in my throat and it took all I had not to throw myself against her in a fierce embrace.
"You have returned, son." Cora took my hands in hers. "I ordered you to stay away, but it is good to see you." Her kind words lacked warmth and emotion. I wondered if she was trying to act as one might expect after the long absence of a loved one.
"Are you truly happy, or are you simply saying it?" I asked, still resisting the urge to hug her.
Cora's face remained impassive. "I am trying to remember how it felt, but even the memories of emotion fade to nothing in this place."
"You should come with me." I pointed in the direction of the crack. "Spend some time in Eden so you can remember."
"I think not." Cora let go of my hands and folded her arms. "Why did you come?"
"Victus is taking over everything in our realm. He's trying to kill me and my friends." I held out my hands imploringly. "Please, Cora, we need your help."
She held out a hand and waved it around the destroyed land. "So this can happen again? So innocent creatures can lose their lives at the whim of a madman?"
"Victus isn't mad." Ambria planted her fists on her hips. "He's building a massive monster army and once he's done with us, he'll come for you again."
"He desires a fragment of the anchor stone," Evadora said. "Immortality."
"Didn't he use an anchor stone fragment to get his army here through the reflected world?" I asked.
She shook her head. "His blond witch found a way to bridge the worlds with a portal." Evadora picked her way through the battlefield and motioned us to follow. She stopped at the edge of a dark pond, now filled with debris, and pointed to the outlines of a pattern burned into the very dirt itself. "We have never seen anything like it."
Ambria gasped, likely because she recognized the pattern just as quickly as I did. "That's the pattern from that sheet of human leather Kanaan took."
I shuddered. "It's a demon portal."
"But how did Victus get here to inscribe the diagram?" Ambria asked.
"He did not." Cora brushed at the pattern with her foot but like a stain, it refused to fade. "It simply appeared."
"That settles it then," I said. "You have to come with me and stop Victus before he invades again."
"I refuse." Cora turned away and looked at the giant moon. "If he sends another army, we will destroy it as before."
"At what cost?" I said. I waved an arm around. "Look at the devastation. You haven't regrown the vegetation and trees because you can't, right? The demon magic spoiled the earth."
Evadora's eyes flared slightly. "You are perceptive."
Cora faced me again, lips tight. "Yes, the demon portal fouled the land. It will be years before it can support life again." She pointed to the tree bridge. "The middle of the bridge was destroyed in the fighting. Even if he returns, he cannot cross to another island."
"If the demon portal operates anything like an omniarch, Victus has to have a clear picture of where he wants to go." I pointed to the fouled pond. "This is where he entered the Glimmer every time he visited. It's the place he visualized the best. That means if he comes back and takes pictures of other places, he could open a portal anywhere and destroy the land there. He doesn't have to cross the tree bridge."
"Then we will strengthen the defenses here," Cora said. "He will go no further."
"Why are you being so stubborn?" Ambria held out her hands as if she choked an invisible person. "Your son needs you, Cora! Eden needs you!"
"You may remain here as long as you wish, but I will not fight your wars." Cora started walking back toward her
condor.
"What about you, Evadora?" I gripped her shoulder. "Will you help?"
She hesitated. A spark of emotion flickered in her eyes, but quickly died. "I promised Mother I would not leave her. I cannot break the promise now."
I'd come here knowing Cora might refuse to help, but I hadn't been prepared for the grim reality of it. I walked up behind her and grabbed her wrist.
She stopped and faced me. "Do not make this any more difficult, child."
I could threaten Cora, tell her I'd order the guardians to let Victus's monsters through. I could trick her into following me out into the rift so I could show her my control of the guardians and trap her outside the Glimmer. There were wicked ways I could try to bend her to my will. But if I had to do that, what would be the point of winning? I would only prove that I was as terrible as my father. Victory at any cost was not the answer.
I had one last card to play before I left with a broken heart.
"If you refuse me, you have no more love left in you." I choked back tears. "Your love forged me into the person I am today. You gave me strength when I had none and hope when everything looked hopeless. I loved you so much I journeyed to the ends of your world and recovered a relic to bring you back to life." She tried to speak, but I held up a finger. "I returned a mother to her daughter, and a kingdom to its ruler. Can you not even lift a finger to help me in my time of greatest need?"
A single tear trickled down her ivory cheek. Cora gasped, as if surprised by the tiniest spark of humanity left in her heart.
"Conrad risked everything for you, Mother." Evadora reached into the folds of her gown and produced a glowing bottle of frosted glass. "Can you not risk everything for him?"
"I told you to get rid of that thing," Cora said, voice trembling as she fought for control. "Why do you still have it?"
"To remember." Evadora uncorked it and held it out to Cora. The bottle shaded warm glowing red. "Drink and remember, Mother."
Cora stared at it for so long, I thought she would refuse. But like an alcoholic faced with a free drink, she snatched it and tipped it back. A single drop fell onto her tongue. A tiny smile cracked her hard lips. Her mouth softened, and the smile grew into a grin. Cora threw back her head and laughed until tears flowed down her cheeks. Then she gripped me in a tight embrace and held me until we both cried ourselves dry.
