by John Corwin
A short, blonde woman smiles at me. "It will be my pleasure."
"Conrad?"
I jerked back and realized Ambria was tugging on my sleeve. "What—where?"
"You zoned out," Max said. "What happened?"
I stared up at the statue and shook the fuzz from my mind. "It was really odd. For a moment, I thought I saw that man leading an army into big white arch."
"What do you mean you saw him?" Max raised his eyebrows.
Ambria peered at me as if I might be mental. "I think your blood sugar might be low."
I shook my head. "No, I actually saw him with a dark-haired girl and an army. There were people in blue cloaks and black uniforms following him."
"You must have seen the documentary," Max said. "Justin Slade did lead an army through an Alabaster Arch. He was taking them to fight a war in another realm called Seraphina. A day after they went through, someone sabotaged the Alabaster Arch network and took it down completely. Nobody's been able to get it activated since, and that's been about six years ago."
"Another realm?" Ambria gazed into the distance. "Do you mean there are other worlds?"
"Several of them." Max seemed quite pleased to have even more stories to tell us. "Let's go eat." He pointed to a towering stone building shaped like a humanoid. "Golem's Gourmet has great fairy pies."
Ambria's eyes widened. "We're going to eat itty-bitty fairies?"
Max grinned, but said nothing more no matter how she badgered him for an answer.
Fairy pies, as it turned out, were similar to stuffed pizza, except they contained bits of mushrooms from the fairy gardens, which made me feel light as air. As I ate the last bit of my pie, it seemed as though I could fly without the aid of a broom.
After we paid, Max led us upstairs to the top of the golem's head. "Watch this!" He leapt toward the courtyard nearly five stories below. Ambria screamed and tried to grab him, but he was out of reach.
Instead of splatting on the ground, Max floated slowly down like a feather. "Jump!" he called up to us.
Ambria gripped my hand. "I hope those fairy mushrooms don't wear off quickly."
Laughing, I ran toward the edge of the roof, Ambria in tow. With a squeal, we leapt. We floated, light as dandelion seeds, flipping head-over-heels and drifting slowly toward the ground.
"Again, again!" Ambria said the moment our feet touched the ground.
Max raced us back up the stairs to the top of the building. This time, we joined hands in a circle and jumped. Kicking our feet, we were able to float in one direction or another. By the time we landed, I felt gravity pulling down on me again.
"Aw, I feel heavier already," Ambria said. "I suppose the mushrooms don't last long."
"Not the small amount they put in the pies," Max said. "The cook once told me the Lady of the Pond limits how many mushrooms they can harvest, so they can only put a little bit in each pie."
"What next?" Ambria asked.
It wasn't much past noon, but I felt exhausted. It seemed hard to believe only yesterday Ambria and I had been prisoners at the orphanage. She'd gotten some sleep, but I really hadn't rested much. We hadn't even been to Levi's house yet. I didn't dare ask Max to join us without making sure the place was clear.
"I think it's time we went to Levi's," I told Ambria. "I'd like to get cleaned up and rest."
Her face fell, but she nodded. "I suppose we should since we haven't been there yet."
"If you'd like, I could grab some board games and bring them over," Max said. "I've got Unicorn Alley, Chesstle, and some cool card games."
"Uhm, maybe tomorrow," I said, perhaps a bit too quickly. "I'm not sure how Levi would react to us bringing a guest so soon."
"True, he is a bit of a nutter from what I've heard." Max grimaced. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't say that about your cousin, although if he is too odd, feel free to come stay with me."
"At your uncle Malcolm's?" Ambria shook her head. "I don't think so. He seems a bit mental himself."
Max waved off her concern. "He's not very nice, but he'd eventually forget you were even there. Besides, he'll be at work all night."
She laughed. "Bad memory?"
"Awful," Max said.
"Do we need to return the brooms?" I asked. Even though flying was fun and made the trip shorter, I didn't want to go up the mountain and back.
"Uh, you can return them tomorrow," Max said. "The university lets students borrow them for a few days at a time."
I held out my hand to him. "Been a pleasure, Max."
He shook my hand. "Same, Conrad."
Ambria gave him a nod. "Perhaps we'll see you tomorrow."
"I sure hope so." Max gave us a grin, hopped on a broom, and took off.
I took out the phone and looked at the map.
"He certainly seems nice," Ambria said. "Perhaps we should tell him everything. He could probably help us fit in better."
"Hmm." I gave it some thought. "Let's get to know him better first."
Ambria climbed onto her broom. "I still can't believe we're in such a magical place." She squealed. "It's exciting, isn't it?"
I looked at our brooms and realized Max had taken off with the one that had my carpet strapped to it. It appeared we'd definitely be seeing him again. "Yes, exciting."
"You don't sound very excited." Ambria gave me a concerned look. "Are you feeling okay?"
I boarded my broom and set off toward Levi's house. "I keep getting these weird feelings."
Ambria flew alongside me. "Like the vision at the statue?"
I nodded. "When I got on the broom, it was like I already knew how to fly it."
"Maybe you should visit a doctor. Seeing things is certainly not normal."
A shudder ran through my shoulders. "I don't think I can." A cold sweat dampened my forehead. "When I think of doctors, I think of Dr. Cumberbatch and what he did to me."
"I'm sure the ones here are much better." Ambria gave me a stern look. "I won't let you lose your mind, Conrad. We need each other if we're to survive."
I knew she was right, especially since I controlled the money. "Maybe Max can help us find a good doctor."
"You trust him enough for that?"
I nodded. "Yes. All I have to tell him is that I'm feeling sick."
"True." She waggled her broomstick, guiding it back and forth in a wavy pattern along the empty street. She looked up at a building with the portrait of a man's face painted on the side. The man's eyes were crossed and he wore a tall pointy hat. "This city might be nicer than anything I've seen, but it looks run down in places."
I read the words beneath the man's portrait. Ignatius the Idiot. He's a puppet not a leader. "Phone, who is Ignatius?"
"Please narrow your parameters," it replied.
I obliged. "Who is Ignatius in Queens Gate?"
"There are three people by that name. Of note is Ignatius Creed, Primus of the Arcane Council."
"Please tell me more about him," I said, turning a corner as directed by the map.
"Ignatius Creed took office four years ago. According to his public speeches, his primary focus is reuniting the Overworld Conclave and maintaining the rule of law." The phone continued to detail Creed's time in office, but I lost interest and cut it off.
We passed by a small square with a restaurant shaped exactly like its name: The Copper Goose. A little ways past that, we reached Concord Avenue. The row houses here were at least three stories tall and constructed of brick. Ornate staircases decorated with marble statues of animals led to wooden double doors. Every staircase had a different animal. There were lions, elephants, horses, rams, and even mythical beasts like griffins and manticores. Similar statues decorated the windows and in some cases, each corner of the roofs.
One twenty-five Concord Avenue had glowing red bird statues perched on the ends of the handrails and on ledges at the top corners of the window frames.
"Phoenixes," Ambria said, stopping to touch one. "How lovely." She jerked back her hand. "It's warm!"
<
br /> I put a finger to it and felt the heat. "Brilliant."
Despite the grandiose statues, the houses on this road had seen better days. Wooden shutters hung loose, the doors looked weathered and aged. Patches and cracks showed on the brick, and the paint had faded and peeled in places. Street artists had added decorations of their own to the sides of the houses, giving it a very ghetto look.
"This used to be a nice neighborhood," I said.
Ambria looked up and down the street. "This isn't the only place that used to be nice. It feels like Queens Gate is only a shadow of what it used to be."
I walked up to the front door. "Phone, unlock the door."
The phone emitted a beam of light into the keyhole. There was a click, and the door creaked ajar. My mouth dropped open at the mess inside. Stacks of newspapers and books crowded all but a narrow path. I stepped inside, flicked a light switch. Flames flickered on in candelabras hanging in the hallway and foyer.
A wooden staircase brimming with piles of paper ran up the wall to my right. Another room filled with junk lay beyond it, and yet another similarly occupied room was to my left. Straight ahead, the hallway ended in a door.
"How awful." Ambria stepped up beside me and pinched her nose. "It smells like mold in here."
"This man was a packrat." I stepped carefully through the narrow path and went up the stairs, turning on the light switch as I did. Flames burned in wall-mounted sconces. Soot and grime dirtied the glass and reflectors.
Ambria followed me. "He could certainly use a maid."
"More like a bulldozer." I reached the top of the staircase and turned right, activating the lamps as I did. The room at the end of the hallway was empty of everything but a bed and a nightstand. The attached bathroom boasted a large clawfoot tub with a hand shower.
Ambria stared at the tub longingly. "I know what I'm doing tonight."
"Don't hog it," I said with a smile. "I could use some relaxation too."
There were two more bedrooms side-by-side in the middle of the hallway. Each looked nearly identical to the first with four-poster beds and luxurious bathrooms. One of them held a number of books and newspapers though not as many as we'd seen downstairs. Apparently, Levi had only recently begun to stack them in here, judging by the dates on the papers.
"Look at this." Ambria held up a newspaper so I could see the front.
The Overworld Daily was printed in large block letters across the top. Just beneath it was a story someone had scribbled over in red ink, and then written NO! in large letters across it. The headline read, Court Denies Reparations to Overlord Victims. I peered closely at the headline, but the words were blotted out by the madman's pen strokes.
I glanced at the date. "This was nearly a year ago."
"What a nutter." Ambria dropped the paper back onto the stack. "Well, at least two bedrooms are clean."
I went back into the hallway and entered the last door. When the lamps flickered on, the light revealed a huge montage of images covering nearly every inch of the wall. A web of red yarn ran from needles stuck in a map of the United Kingdom. In the center of it all was a huge photo circled with red ink. Beneath it, messy handwriting proclaimed, I found him!!!
"My god, Conrad," Ambria breathed. "That's you."
Chapter 14
"What in the world's going on here?" Max said from behind me and Ambria.
The two of us jumped and shouted at the same time.
"What are you doing here, Max?" Ambria pushed him back. He tripped and sat down hard on a stack of newspapers.
"Ouch." Max gave her a hurt look. "I took the wrong broom. Soon as I noticed it had your flying carpet on it, I looked up the address to this place and came by to drop it off." He stood up and pointed to the montage on the wall. "I think it's time you explained to me why your picture is on that wall of weird and why it says 'I found him'."
"I don't know." It was the truth, but I knew it wouldn't stop his questions. Unfortunately, I couldn't come up with an explanation.
Ambria stared at me in silence as if attempting to formulate an answer of her own.
"Well?" Max said. His eyes narrowed. "Why would Levi be looking for you, Conrad?" He looked suspiciously at Ambria. "Are you really related to Levi or did you just make that up?"
Before I could stop him, he pushed past me and into the office. He walked along the wall and let out a long whistle. "Whoa, these articles form a timeline stretching from the first war to the second war and all the way to now." He stopped a third of the way. "This must be when the Overworld Daily was forced to close, because there's a big gap in dates."
I let out a resigned sigh. "Max, please tell me about the wars."
He gave me a wary look. "I want the truth, Conrad."
"I don't know much." I looked at Ambria. "We came here looking for the truth."
Max walked to the left end of the wall. "Six years ago, Justin Slade led the allies to victory over Daelissa, an evil Seraphim who wanted to conquer Eden. The first war was called the Second Seraphim War."
"What is Eden?" Ambria asked.
He waved his arms around the room. "The place where mortals live is called Eden. There are other dimensions we call realms. Seraphina is one them and that's where the angels—Seraphim—live."
"Angels?" Ambria blanched. "We were in a war with angels?"
Max wrinkled his forehead. "You've got to forget everything you learned as a nom. The Seraphim are totally different than the biblical ones."
The orphanage hadn't given us a religious upbringing, but we'd been taught about various religions. I clamped down on my surprise and continued where Max had left off. "After the war, you said Justin Slade led his army into Seraphina to fight another war, but someone sabotaged the gateway and stranded him there."
"That's right." Max took a couple more steps down the wall. "The Second Seraphim War tore apart the Overworld Conclave. Justin and his allies had only just started to piece the government back together when they left to help with the war in Seraphina."
"How irresponsible," Ambria said. "They should have finished here before leaping off to another war."
"I guess they never thought they'd be trapped in another realm," Max said.
"What happened next?" I asked.
"Well, with thousands of Templars, elite Arcanes, Daemos, and other allies out of the way, a new underground organization led by Cyphanis Rax, one of Daelissa's former allies, seized power. Before Cyphanis could declare himself ruler, he was murdered. A man named Victus and his wife, Delectra, took control."
Templars? I imagined men in shining armor. I had no idea what he meant by Daemos, but didn't want to bury him in questions. "Was Victus a magician?" I asked.
Max laughed. "Don't ever call an Arcane that. It's a terrible insult." He pressed his hand to a newspaper with the headline, Victus Declares Himself Overlord. "Victus was a powerful and brilliant scientist. His wife was a powerful Arcane."
"A scientist?" Ambria rumpled her forehead. "How could a scientist be powerful?"
"Well, since you two are obviously even more normal than you let on, I'd bet you've never seen what an Overworld scientist is capable of." He shivered. "Victus—the Overlord—created mutated animals to fight for him, not to mention his robot army."
"Robot army?" I was astounded. "It sounds like something out of a mad scientist movie."
Max traced a finger along the wall and stopped. "Well, now I know why Levi was so mental. Cyphanis Rax was his father."
"What?" I walked over to the newspaper and read the headline. Cyphanis Rax Murdered!
Cyphanis and Kara Rax were found dead in their home today. Though their son, Levi, was away in France, their daughter was home at the time and is missing, presumed dead. Due to Cyphanis's imminent rise to power, speculation is rampant that this was an assassination.
Red ink filled the margins all around the story, one word predominant: WHO? It was easy to see where Levi's descent into madness began. He'd lost his entire family in one blow.
>
"Why is his last name Baker?" Ambria asked.
"I'm sure he changed it." Max gave her a wan smile. "Cyphanis Rax wasn't much more popular than the Overlord."
Despite the awful tragedy, I still didn't understand how all of this connected to me.
Max continued. "Once the Overlord took over, he dismantled the Overworld Conclave and set up rules to make sure every Arcane and scientist was registered so he could keep an eye on them." Max looked away from the wall. "There was one thing they hadn't counted on."
Ambria sat on a wooden stool and looked at Max, her eyes rapt with curiosity. "What was it? Tell me!"
"Justin Slade's younger sister, Ivy, hadn't gone to Seraphina with the others because she was in Australia and was supposed to join with the army at a later time." Max shrugged. "I don't know all the details, but she found out that the Alabaster Arches weren't working and came to Queens Gate. The Overlord set a trap and almost killed Ivy when she arrived. After that, she built a resistance of her own and fought him."
"Was she powerful?" Ambria asked.
Max nodded briskly. "Ivy is a Seraphim. She's way more powerful than any Arcane alive. Even so, she needed help to defeat an army of mutant animals, robots, evil scientists, and Arcanes."
I found a headline a few more steps down. Ivy Slade Defeats Overlord. There were several such headlines, each one about a different battle. The last battle had been fought at Queens Gate.
"After Ivy beat their army, the Overlord and his people scattered everywhere and went into hiding." Max leaned against the wall and faced us. "They finally tracked down the Overlord and his wife, but before they could arrest them, the pair committed suicide."
Ambria gasped. "How awful."
"That's not the worst of it," Max said. "They had a little boy nobody knew about who was with them when they died."
"Did they kill him too?" Ambria's eyes filled with horror.
He grimaced. "No. Victus and Delectra killed themselves with poison right in front of the boy."
"What terrible people." She huffed with disgust.
"And the boy?" I asked. "What happened to him?"
