by Peter Telep
They’ll just regroup and find another world to conquer.
Right now the Lords and Ladies of Galleon are inside the ship’s cathedral, and they’ve used the queen robe to reinforce the walls, making the place impenetrable.
But there’s still something we can do:
Lure them outside.
But how?
Fear destroys worlds.
But it can also save them.
We need to make the armadis so afraid of something that the lords and ladies will come out and fight.
And that’s where a young Floran named Keane Centennial Trusand, son of Corrales, comes into play.
Julie rescued Keane from his tube and woke him up. He’s in his body now, being escorted by a horde of masks toward a pair of doors about a thousand feet tall. They’re made of trillions of hexagons. Inside each hexagon is the tiny face of a prisoner screaming to get out.
“And now for the most dramatic moment ever in my life,” Keane says in my thoughts. “Here we go, bitches…”
“Open the doors,” he hollers aloud, his voice echoing throughout the hall. “I have a message!”
The lords and ladies are willing to listen—
Because their ship is being torn apart, and he’s promised to put an end to it…
* * *
As the cathedral doors groan open, I refocus my attention on our band of warriors back on Flora, ready to jump to the Galleons’ ship in orbit. I review our attack plan with the others.
Hedera is especially moved by what I tell them. “You were right, Doc. Everything is connected.”
She says that because “from ashes to bloom,” means something much greater now, something each and every one of us will experience for ourselves.
At the end of my briefing, I stare at them, hoping they don’t see me shaking. “So this is it. We have to stop them… because the future isn’t theirs—it’s ours!”
* * *
While we jump away from Flora, I’m still connected with Keane, “hearing” his thoughts, and seeing the world through his eyes.
At this moment, “we” strut into the gigantic cathedral, moving up the center aisle like we own the place.
Thousands of Lords and Ladies of Galleon glowing in white cloaks have come down from their wreath and have crowded onto the cathedral’s polished black floor like they’re attending some royal celebration. Beyond them, the walls throb with patterns of personas still trapped there. And those personas can’t be rescued because the queen robe continues to block anyone from entering.
A commotion erupts ahead of us as Solomon pushes his way through the crowd, raises his palm, and literally lifts Keane into the air, holding him there, trapped.
“Aren’t you supposed to be dead?” he asks. “Oh well, my lovely daughter’s been at it again. Now, my young, misguided fool, if you have some ridiculous announcement, spit it out.”
“Doc, I’m gonna lose it,” Keane says in my thoughts, even as again, I’m seeing this all happen through his eyes.
“No, you’re not. You got this.”
He clears his throat. “The Prophecy of Halsparr—”
“The what?” Solomon asks.
Keane swallows and raises his voice. “The Prophecy of Halsparr has been passed down for thousands of years, and it talks about how your planet got destroyed and how you’ll vanish forever. T-t-today is your last day!”
“Ka-ka-ka Keane, will you stop shaking and just talk?” Solomon asks. “And are you really here to threaten us with some fake prophecy?”
“It’s real!” he shouts.
“Did you hear that?” Solomon cries. “That’s the most ridiculous—and cliché—idea I’ve ever heard!”
The entire cathedral erupts in laughter.
In fact, it takes Solomon a few more seconds to calm them down before he adds, “Oh, my dear fool. Think about it. You’re now our hostage. We threaten to kill you, and your friends break off the attack outside.”
Keane raises his arms high into the air. “A chosen one will come. He will enter the cathedral, and the Lords and Ladies of Galleon will bow in awe and fear and beg for mercy. Now, all of you, look at me, FOR I AM THE CHOSEN ONE!”
“Uh, no,” Keane says to me after shouting at them. “I’m totally full of it, and we’re all going to die!”
CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
Meeka, Steffanie, Tommy, Cypress, and Hedera are at my sides as we plunge through space, all dressed in impressive white suits of armor and protected from the lack of air and extreme cold by the scholars and masks carried within our wreaths.
Behind us are the grren. Their eyes flash as brightly as the armored plates covering their backs. I wasn’t sure how they’d react to all this, but the scholars and masks are keeping them calm and focused. They’ve tucked in their legs and extended their necks, while their mouths hang open to show off their rows of teeth.
With all of us borrowing the powers of the masks inside us, it seems the armor goes with the package, whether you’re human or grren. Obviously, the Galleons rely on images of ultimate power to intimidate their enemies and persuade them to surrender without a fight. That explains the eerie blank faces, the armor, all of it.
But inside every bully is a coward—
And we’re not afraid. Well, maybe a little.
Maybe a lot.
Okay, I’m freaking out as we dive toward their ship. The rings encircling the giant mask at its center shed personas that vanish as they’re pulled back by their owners.
At the same time, more scholars fly into the masks and attach themselves to the masks’ foreheads.
Once they do that, the scholars talk to the masks and let them know what’s happening: “We have to jump back to the ship so you can be carried by one of the prisoners. After that, you’ll be from the Armadis and can help us fight!”
As we expected, the masks don’t argue. All of them were forced into service, and now we’re turning them into a new army we carry inside.
Thousands of fresh recruits begin to jump away from the ship to do battle with the enemy masks on Earth, who are still snatching up people and trying to rebuild the ship.
Meanwhile, the scholars here continue linking to personas and prisoners, helping to dismantle the rings.
And yes, it’s total insanity, with golden scholars spinning everywhere and masks shrinking and being pulled away.
Imagine handfuls of golden glitter thrown into a night sky over and over and over…
But then, as we race toward the ship, a new wave of masks appears, maybe hundreds. They jump forward, forming a wall in front of us.
“Spread out,” Cypress says in my thoughts. “I shoot first.”
“No one’s arguing,” I tell her.
We surge into our mask forms—
But the wall ignites in thousands of flickering bolts.
All at once the scholar and Grace carried in my wreath scream as enemy lightning strikes my face.
A searing pain like being doused in flaming oil leaves me shaking, and along with the burning comes this needling sensation that sews lines across my cheeks.
Now a rumbling noise fills my ears as another bolt reaches my eyes, leaving me blind and gasping.
Yes, I know the sounds and feelings of suffocation are all in my mind and produced by the pain, but I can’t help feeling them, and I can’t help realizing that these masks aren’t here to capture us. This is full power. They have orders to kill.
My vision blurs and returns. I glance to the others and shiver again. Bolts form webs over their giant faces, and beneath their blank expressions flash looks of sheer agony.
“Push through the pain!” I tell everyone. “And just fire back! Fire! We can do this!”
Cypress launches a cluster of blue bolts, while her eyelo glimmers into view and unleashes her shields.
“Now, Doke! Everyone fire!”
The thing is, none of really know how. It’s up to the mask inside to teach us, and I hope it’s a quick lesson.
G
race whispers in my mind to just reach out with my eyes and visualize the bolts.
I do, and to my surprise they come hard and fast, waves of energy lashing out above Cypress’s shield and blasting into a pair of masks.
The two masks get stunned and tumble away—
And then I’m on to another pair, blasting them first before they can turn on me.
I’m smiling in disbelief.
Now, despite all the flashes and clashes around me, I’m able to see the others take on their own opponents, and each of us has her or her own fighting style:
Tommy leads the charge, jumping above the enemy and soaring down on them like a Marine Corps fighter plane, strafing them with his bolts.
Steffanie shifts left and right, doing a zigzagging dance that throws off the aim of the masks targeting her, even as she fires a torrential line of lightning.
Hedera goes really wild, panning up and down while rotating her head to send flurries of bolts that resemble flowers clashing down on the enemy.
Meeka prefers a no nonsense, super controlled approach, her head shifting tightly like a cyborg on steroids so she can systematically take out masks.
Cypress slips by the enemy with the stealth-like approach of a grren, slipping past the first wave and then whirling to take them out from behind.
Now everyone’s shouting in my mind at the same time, and it’s hard to tell who’s thinking what:
“I’m firing the bolts! It works!”
“Yeah, but they’re too many of them…”
“Y’all are doing great! Don’t stop!”
“Follow me. Form a wedge to push through!”
“How is it going in the cathedral?”
* * *
My connection to Keane weakens for a moment as back in the cathedral, six scholars blast free from his body in a shimmering haze of energy. They push through his clothes and float in the air, forming an arc over his head.
Actually, over our heads, since again I’m taking this all in through Keane’s eyes.
He was concealing those scholars beneath his clothes, smuggling them inside the cathedral.
And now the masks who brought him inside stand here—
Ready to become our allies.
Even if they don’t know it yet.
In the next second, the scholars will attach themselves to those masks, free them from the Armadis’s control, and then Keane will draw all six into his body.
Next, he’ll explode into a golden mask more powerful than any the Galleons have ever seen.
Actually, he won’t be any more powerful than we are right now. He’ll just look more powerful, and looks are deceiving.
And no, to be quite clear, Keane is not the chosen one.
The only thing he’s been chosen for is an acting job in our little production, because if he can scare the hell out of the lords and ladies, they’ll rush for the doors—
Because individually, they don’t even have the power to jump.
That’s right.
Together, in their wreath, they’re practically unstoppable.
But alone, they’re just weak little pieces of the puzzle, and we’re praying they don’t form their wreath until after they get outside—
Because that’s when we’ll be ready for them with phase two of our plan.
So basically, yes, we sent Keane into the cathedral, using him like a Trojan horse to smuggle in the scholars.
And now he’ll unleash his horror show.
“Are you ready?” I ask him in our thoughts.
“Uh, I guess so.”
“I said, are you ready? Are you pumped?”
“Yeah, I’m pumped.”
“I said, are you PUMPED!”
“Hell yeah, I am!”
“Who’s da man?” I ask him.
“I am!”
“That’s right! You da man! Oorah!”
“I hear that! Oorah! And you know what? I really am the chosen one!”
“Hell yeah, you are!” I cry.
Keane’s so fired up now that his acting performance will win a freaking Oscar.
He takes a deep breath and unleashes the hidden scholars from his chest.
Just then, the masks who escorted him suddenly ignite, and within the next gasp, they launch bolts that target all six of the scholars.
In shock, we watch as the scholars burst into shards of hexagons that tumble and vanish into dust and smoke.
Keane shivers in terror. His show is over before it ever began.
The masks knew we were coming.
Someone told them.
“Doc, what do I do now?” Keane asks.
“I don’t know.”
The masks shrink into their human form.
I curse.
One of them is Julie, who looks at us, her eyes pleading. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“Julie, what did you do?” Keane asks.
“She’s made her father proud!” Solomon screams.
Before Keane can react, he hunches over and projects his persona, which now wears a glittering white cloak—the same ones worn by the Lords of Galleon.
He shares the pain with me, and I can’t believe how strong it is—the itch to leave your body.
“They’re forcing me to do it,” he says. “And I don’t know if I can hang on. I think… it’s too late. I have to go now.”
“Julie, please…” Keane gasps aloud.
“I can’t block them anymore,” she says, crying. “We have to give up. There’s nothing we can do.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
It’s over.
The Prophecy of Halsparr is true.
The future that Dr. Arabelle told me about, the one in which we defeat the Armadis, is a lie.
We created the Galleons, and they’ll continue to expand and enslave everyone.
Fear destroys worlds.
Fear cannot save them.
There is no “ashes to bloom.”
Life is not a celebration—
And we all just die alone.
My father’s sacrifice was for nothing. We can’t change anything. The cycle finds another way to repeat itself forever.
And ever.
I break my connection with Keane. It’s just too much. He’ll become a Lord of Galleon, whether I call off the attack or not. I want so badly to be strong and take all the lessons that everyone taught me and use them to get through this.
But I can’t.
There is no “getting through this.”
We’re done.
And now we’re just wasting time, trying to blast through this wall of masks.
It’s useless.
The cathedral doors are locked shut and reinforced by the queen robe.
Even if we get close, we’ll never break through.
How am I supposed to tell everyone that we failed, that Keane is lost, and that everyone we love will die or become a slave? The only way to get inside the cathedral now is if…
Wait a minute.
Back on Halsparr, the queen robe tried to connect with me when she was taken prisoner. Maybe I can reach her now.
I send out an urgent invitation:
If you’re there… please… help us…
* * *
A spiral of blue-and-gold light rips me away from the Galleons’ ship and leaves me dizzy and disoriented. I blink hard and crease my eyes against the glare. I’m seated at a wrought iron table in a sunroom with towering walls and a ceiling constructed of multicolored pieces of glass shaped like, you guessed it, hexagons.
Fancy porcelain cups filled with steaming tea, along with a basket of cookies and fresh-baked pastries, sit on the table. The napkins are cloth, the silverware the heavy kind people use for special occasions.
Small trees and vines and flowers I’ve seen on Flora and Halsparr and even Earth grow from decorative pots and form walls of greenery. Beyond them, from somewhere in the distance, comes the sound of birds and running water, along with the scents of mirage and a brand of perfume t
hat seems eerily familiar.
Obviously, this image is drawn from my mind, created by our connection—and it’s what she’s chosen to show me.
“Hello, Docherty Harrison, son of Thaddeus.”
I turn as she glides over to the table and takes a seat.
She’s about as old as my grandmother and dressed in a long robe of blue velvet with a white fur collar. Her hair rises like a halo, and there must be a hundred shades of blonde and silver and gray wired through it, along with jewels that glitter and change shape in the sunlight, becoming squares and circles and diamonds.
She’s like a medieval queen, all graceful and formal and elegant, with long, dainty fingers.
“Am I all that you imagine?” she asks in a strong British accent.
“I guess. I mean when I think of a queen…”
“I’m glad.” She flows into a seat, brushes off one of her sleeves, and then lifts her tea cup, extending her pinky as she does so. Her eyes are the greenest I’ve ever seen and literally cast a glow across her pale cheeks.
Taking her cue, I lift my own cup. I accidently slurp, and she scowls at me. “Sorry,” I whisper. “But I’m kind of a mess right now and don’t have much time.”
“You have time,” she says.
“Uh, really, I don’t.”
“While we’re here, time slows down outside.”
“Seriously?”
“Yes. So… you’ve come with a request.”
“I have.”
She frowns. “Docherty, with your grandmother’s help I was hiding on Halsparr until the Galleons found me. You saw them take me. You heard me call for help. And you know what they can do to all of our worlds.”
“Which is why we need to stop them.”
She takes a deep breath and stares at her tea.
“What? You can’t help?” I ask.
She flinches.
“Oh, man, I really thought you could fight them. Am I wrong? There’s nothing you can do?”
She frowns. “The only power I have left is the ability to end my own life. They couldn’t take that from me.”
“So if you die, will the doors open?”
“Docherty, the Galleons made me a promise.”
“Oh, really?” I start shaking my head. “What did Solomon promise you?”
