by Linsey Hall
Our animals slowed to a trot as we neared the village.
“You’d better shift back. Pachato’s son will be a supernatural, but there could be humans here.” Though what they would think of the demon llamas, I had no idea. But considering how threatening Roarke looked in his demon form…
It really wasn’t the best first impression. Not if you wanted help, at least.
Roarke’s magic swirled around him, and he returned to his human form. His shirt and jacket returned, dry because of his magic, but they were immediately soaked in the rain.
The llamas slowed their trot to a walk as we reached the buildings. There were only about thirty wooden structures, most glowing warmly with light. Though it was still midday, the rainclouds made it feel closer to dusk.
The cobblestone street ran with water, and the llamas’ hooves clacked against it. Slightly ahead on the left, a curtain in a window flicked open, revealing a shadowed face. A moment later, the door swung open.
“Ilyapa! Maita!” a man called.
The llamas swung toward the voice, then trotted over.
“Must be Pachato’s son,” I said.
Roarke nodded.
The man stepped out into the rain and scratched both llamas behind the ears. “My father must have sent you. I am Sandro.”
He spoke English. I didn’t look very local, probably.
“Hello, Sandro,” I said. “I am Del, and this is Roarke. Your father did send us. We need help reaching the ancient city of the Incate.”
He glanced up at the ominous clouds. “In this weather?”
I shrugged. “We can wait a while to see if it passes.”
He nodded eagerly. “Yes, yes. It will pass. Come in. Get warm and dry.”
We climbed off the llamas as a young boy came out, his face lighting when he saw the massive creatures.
“Ilyapa! Maita!” he cried.
The llamas bent low so he could scratch their ears. Sandro said something in Peruvian, and the boy led the llamas around the house.
“Come, come.” He gestured us inside.
We followed him into the warm, dimly lit space. It was simple but pretty, with wooden furniture and a colorful woven covering on the couch. Before we could step too far inside, Sandro turned and stopped us, holding out his hands. “First, your clothes.”
“Oh, sorry!” We were dripping all over his floor.
“Not a problem.” He held his hands closer to us, and a strong warm wind rushed over us. A bit like a giant hand dryer in an airport bathroom.
Within seconds, my front half was dry. It was freaking delightful. So I turned and let him dry my back half. When we were fully dry, he stepped back and turned off his wind power.
“Thank you for your hospitality,” Roarke said.
“Don’t thank me until you have had a drink.” Sandro turned toward the simple kitchen and puttered around.
I glanced at Roarke, who shrugged, then nodded toward the small table surrounded by four chairs. We sat. Roarke was about a foot and a half taller than Sandro—he’d had to duck coming in—and I had to suppress a giggle at the sight of him slowly lowering himself into the tiny chair.
When it didn’t crack under his weight, relief was clear on his face.
Sandro carried over two cups that were topped with thick foam. He handed us each one. “Chicha de Jora. A local beer.”
“Thank you.” I took it and sipped through the foam. Sweet at first, and then sour, it wasn’t like any beer I’d ever had. “Delicious.”
I meant it, too. Though it was a bit odd and the foam tickled my nose, it was tasty.
Sandro got a glass for himself, then sat. “Tell me what I can do for you.”
We explained about our need to reach the ancient city of the Incate.
“I can take you partway there. Then, it is up to you.” He frowned, worry creasing his brow. “Though you may not like what you find.”
Chapter Seven
After a meal of Causa, a Peruvian potato and avocado casserole, we departed Sandro’s house once the rain had stopped. The sun peeked out from behind the clouds, turning the cool day warm. Sandro led us out of the village and toward a path that wound its way up the mountain. Since his town butted right up to the base of the green slope, it was an immediate incline.
The path was steep and rough. Within minutes, I was panting hard, in part because of the bag of rocks on my back. Of course the Incate valued rocks. Who would want to carry them up this slope? After a journey like this, they had to be worth a lot.
Roarke tried to take my pack from me, probably because I was panting like a dog after a long run, but I shrugged him off.
“I’ve got it.”
“Don’t be stubborn. You’ll need to be able to use your arms.”
I almost growled at him, but bit it back. No need to be a brat. “Thanks. But really, I want to carry my own weight.”
And in fairness, my pack was sized for me. His was a lot bigger.
He reached out and squeezed my hand. I squeezed back.
We’d been hiking for several hours when Sandro suddenly stopped. I pulled to a halt abruptly. Ahead of us, the path widened. And suddenly, it was paved in strange, shaped stones.
Sandro turned, his voice serious. “You must put your feet exactly where I put my feet.”
We nodded. I was familiar with this kind of trap. No way I’d be going rogue, not if we had an inside man leading the way.
Sandro began to walk across the stones, slowly and steadily. The path seemed totally random. But I followed, muscles straining as I took wide steps, careful not to tread on the wrong rock.
We were nearly to the end when a rabbit darted out of the bushes, landing on the rocks and then bounding away. My heart leaped into my throat, and sweat broke out on my skin.
Oh fates—would its weight set off the trap?
But nothing happened. I’d almost relaxed when a louder rustling sounded from behind it.
“Incoming,” Roarke said.
A puma lunged out of the forest to my left, its big paws hitting the rocks as it chased the rabbit across the path. The cat was so fast that it was never at risk of the booby trap. It’d bounded off into the forest by the time the ground beneath my feet began to rumble.
Sandro stepped off the path, having reached the end.
“Hurry!” he cried as the ground beneath me rose up, rock cracking and breaking.
I lost my footing, crashing to my butt against the rock as it grew around me.
Like a giant mouth, rising out of the ground to swallow me whole.
The path had morphed into a huge, fanged maw that would swallow wayward walkers. I was alone inside the crevasse of rock, and I scrambled to my feet. There was no way I could climb out, so I adopted my Phantom form. I’d completely lost my orientation. If I walked through the stone the wrong way, I could end up in the mountain.
I swallowed hard. As I was about to pick a random direction, a shadow above blocked out the light. I glanced up.
“Roarke!”
He swept down, wings carrying him low enough to grab my outstretched hand. He pulled me free of the now-closing pit, and I thanked fate that he was one of the rare few who could touch a Phantom. My heart thundered as he gathered me close and flew to the other side of the path.
Sandro watched us, his jaw open. “You are not normal.”
Roarke put me on the ground. “What’s normal among supernaturals, anyway?”
Sandro inclined his head. “Fair point.”
He tilted his head to watch the path become flat again. I turned as well, watching the stone settle back into a flat path. Had I still been trapped in the great mouth of enchanted stone, I’d have been swallowed into the ground with no one the wiser. How many bodies were under there? I shuddered.
“I told you to walk where I walked,” Sandro said.
I grinned. “You weren’t joking.”
“Come.” He turned, heading back down the path.
We continued to climb, hiking
higher into the mountains. Three times, Sandro stopped us so he could throw a large rock onto the path ahead. Every time he did, the pressure of the stone hitting the path ignited a giant rockfall. The boulders tumbled down in a roar.
“I’m glad you’re our guide,” I said as I watched the deadly scene. The rocks came so fast they would have caught us for sure.
“You must have paid my father well.”
I shrugged.
Soon after, we reached a break in the path. The ground had long ago fallen away. Forty feet across, the path resumed.
“Here is where I leave you.” Sandro pointed across the crevasse. “You must get across. Then continue to climb. From there, you will find the settlement. Look carefully. It is covered by plants.”
“Thank you, Sandro,” Roarke said.
Sandro inclined his head. “My pleasure. Good luck.”
“We’re going to need it, I think.” I couldn’t look away from the massive gap in the mountain that we were supposed to cross.
Sandro left, ambling back down the mountain.
“I can fly us across.”
“Okay. But give me a sec. I want to know if there was once a bridge here.” And it would give me a good opportunity to practice my magic before the big show at the Incate settlement when I had to bring the healer back from the past so we could get a cure.
I drew in a deep breath and let the magic flow through me. I sent my magic toward the empty space where a bridge might have been. The familiar blue glow spread out from me, racing across the ground. As it traveled, a spindly rope bridge appeared.
Just like in that Indiana Jones movie. I swallowed hard, remembering what had happened to that bridge.
“Yeah, I’ll definitely take that ride, thanks,” I said.
Roarke laughed. “I can’t blame you. That would not pass any kind of safety test.”
“No.” I let my magic fade, willing the bridge to disappear back to the past from which I’d called it. The process was slow because the bridge was quite long.
I had a theory that the larger the space I brought back from the past, the longer it took to appear or disappear. As if my magic had to fill the space or drain away from it, and that took time.
“Let’s go.” I nodded at Roarke.
In a swirl of magic, he shifted to his demon form and swept me up in the air. I clung to him, grateful for the ride.
“I can’t look down.” I squeezed my eyes tight as he flew us across the open space that plunged to the river below, thousands of feet below.
Roarke chuckled.
When we landed, I drew in a breath. “I’m not normally afraid of heights, but that was a bit much, even for me.”
“You had that Indiana Jones scene in your head, didn’t you?”
“How did you know?”
“Hard not to think of it.” He smiled. “Ready to keep going?”
I tilted my head back to examine the path that led up the steep mountainside. The trek was getting serious, now. “Can’t wait.”
We hiked, Roarke insisting on taking the lead, keeping our eyes and ears alert for any booby traps or danger. The air grew mistier and colder the higher we climbed, until we were within the clouds themselves.
“A cloud forest,” I said, wonder filling me. “I read about them last night. We’re actually in the clouds.”
“Incredible.”
“Really is.” My crazy life and the trials it was bringing lately had also brought me to some amazing places, at least.
Then we hiked higher than the clouds, ascending nearly to the top of the green mountain. Around us, other mountains popped up above the clouds.
“I feel like I’m on top of the world.” I grinned.
“We are. And I think we’re here.”
“Yeah.” Upon closer inspection, the mountaintop—which still extended up another few hundred yards ahead of us—wasn’t just naturally bumpy. Foliage grew over tumbled-down buildings, the land reclaiming the space for itself. “Sandro wasn’t kidding when he said this place was covered in plants.”
Here and there, stone walls peeked out, but they were well hidden.
“Shall we search for the healer’s building?” Roarke asked.
“Yes.” We’d decided that we would go straight to the healer before I brought the place back from the past, then pretend to be traders looking for a cure to the curse. I wanted to spend as little time as possible interacting with people from the past, because who knew what they’d do to us?
I called upon my dragon sense, asking it to take me to the building where the healer had once lived. It took a while, but eventually it caught on, tugging me toward the top of the mountain.
We hiked up the mountainside, finding an abandoned set of stairs that was distinguishable only by its slope. Tumbled-down buildings crouched on either side, but our path was relatively easy—though it did make me pant like a dog at the beach.
“All the way up?” Roarke asked.
“Yep. The elite usually lived at the top of the mountain in settlements like this, so it makes sense the healer would be up there, too. Gotta tend to the king’s every boo-boo!”
“It’s good to be king.”
I panted a laugh and kept climbing. We passed a big, open flat space that had probably once been some kind of courtyard, then continued to climb. There were larger buildings at the top, all of them tumbled down and roofless like the ones below.
But it was a smaller building that my dragon sense pulled me toward.
“That one.” I pointed, then led Roarke toward it. There was an alley to the right, a narrow space between two broken-down half walls. “Let’s get in the alley for a little cover.”
“Good idea.”
We squeezed in between the two buildings, which wasn’t bad because the walls only came up to our thighs. I dug into the small pocket on my backpack and pulled out the two potions from Connor. They were neon orange, and I’d bet big money they didn’t taste like orange soda.
I handed one off to Roarke. “Drink this. It’ll allow us to communicate with the healer.”
“Excellent. My Incate is terrible.” He unscrewed the cap on the little vial and tossed it back, grimacing.
I followed, almost gagging at the foul taste of bitter medicine. I’d found that the prettier Connor’s potions, the grosser they usually tasted.
I coughed. “Sure hope that worked.”
“Me too.”
“Ready?”
Roarke nodded. I let my power fill me, calling upon my ability to bring back the past. I’d decided to go back to about 1050 AD, hoping that it would do the trick. Magic flowed through my limbs, then spread out from me, glowing and blue.
First, the plants receded, revealing the walls that they had tried to consume. Then the stone walls on either side of us grew up quickly, their roofs appearing seconds later. They blocked out the sun, casting shadow over our hiding place.
Through the gap in the alley, I could see out to the street. Other buildings grew up across from us, one story high and constructed of perfectly carved stones. No mortar for the Incate, not with masons like that.
“I think you’re good,” Roarke murmured.
“Yeah.” I’d definitely brought back the healer’s house, so I pulled back on my magic. I couldn’t tell how much of the Incate settlement I had brought back from the past. Maybe all of it. When we were through here, I’d have to be careful to send it all back to its proper time period.
Quietly, I shifted toward the alley entrance, peeking out. The first person I saw was walking away from us down the street. And he was blue. A Phantom.
If they were like me, as Mordaca had said, they could also be in human form. But that one chose Phantom. Across the street, a blue shadow flashed by a window. Another Phantom.
Though I would clearly blend in with the crowd better if I was in Phantom form, I decided not to shift or it’d reveal my cursed state.
When I was certain they weren’t looking out the window and that no one was on the li
ttle street, I hurried out and turned right, seeking the door of the healer’s house.
I knocked briefly on the wood, then pushed it open and stepped inside, Roarke behind me. It was a bit rude, but I’d risk it so as not to be seen.
The space was small, with a fire burning sluggishly in the hearth on the left side of the room. A smiling woman looked up from behind a wooden table. This was clearly a shop, with shelves of vials and potions behind her. Thank fates. At least she was expecting people to just show up, and I didn’t walk in on her naked.
Her smile faltered slightly. “You are not from here?”
There was a slight lag on my understanding of her words. The potion. “No. We are traders from across the sea. We seek your help.”
After a moment, she nodded. She, too, seemed to experience a slight lag in understanding my words. “What do you need?”
From behind her, a head peeked out of a doorway leading to a back room. Eyes met mine before the head disappeared behind the wall. Nerves prickled my skin.
I met the healer’s gaze. “A friend of ours has been cursed with a spell that we believe originated here. It makes him susceptible to suggestion and mind control. Do you happen to have a cure?”
A thoughtful gleam entered her eyes. She hesitated, clearly thinking. “Yes. That is possible. And I do have a cure, but only for the right price.”
From behind her, the head popped out again. I thought I might’ve heard whispers, but I couldn’t quite tell. My skin prickled with unease.
“We’ve brought obsidian.” Roarke removed his pack and took it to her table, unzipping it.
The first thing she did was study the zipper and the nylon, taking ages.
Hurry up! We needed to get out of here. I didn’t like the whispering people in the other room.
“You could have the bag as well,” I said.
She didn’t respond, just reached into the bag and withdrew a piece of red obsidian. Her eyes brightened. “This is very rare. Only the emperor has red obsidian.” She reached in and withdrew the green. “And this!”
