Tasker smiled and put his hand out to the glass, but he could feel the strength fading from his limbs. Then he realized he didn’t have the energy to raise his arm anymore. When his legs were too weak to hold him, he slumped to the ground and leaned against the door that led into the energy chamber, facing the window and his friends. His weight caused the door to close fully and the latch clicked shut. In the back of his mind, he knew his friends could soon enter the chamber.
Eriunia stood silently in the window watching Tasker. He looked up one last time. He looked straight at her, but there was no sign he could see her. There was a smile on Tasker’s face, though, and Eriunia thought he almost looked peaceful. After another couple of moments, he slipped all the way down to the floor, and she knew that was the moment he passed into the afterlife.
“He’s gone,” Eriunia said quietly. She turned and joined the hug Jane and Jacob were sharing. She felt Bella drift down to her shoulder, and the fairy’s arms were wrapped around her neck. She could feel the fairy sobbing.
All around the grieving friends, the great machinery of the Antikytheran Device hummed and went on about its business of maintaining the Divide. The alarms and warnings that had sounded so loudly quieted, almost as if in response to the death of the dwarf.
“He was a great map maker,” Eriunia said. She wiped a couple of tears from her eyes and released her grip on the others. “He chose to save his friends, and then chose to save the world.”
“Look!” Jacob exclaimed. He pointed to the door, where a brilliant light was flowing out from the window.
Jane shielded her eyes, but she could see a glowing figure standing in the small chamber. He waved to them, and then floated up into the air and vanished in a twinkling that reminded her of fairy lights.
“Jane!” Coronia shouted desperately. Something was still wrong in the control area, and she needed them quickly. “Something’s still happening.” The globe that showed the earth had an angry knot of red right over the city of Duluth, and it wasn’t going away. A single warning bell beeped woefully from one of the banks, sending out its cry for help to anyone who would listen.
Jane sprinted to Coronia and looked at the globe. Without thinking, she dove into the Divide. To her surprise, it opened easily. Spread out before her was the entire world. In shock, she realized this globe opened the entire world to her. This was literally the master map that covered the globe from China to Canada, from Russia to Chili.
Pushing those thoughts aside, she scanned the North Shore of Lake Superior and spotted the trouble immediately. A great darkness marked the area where the power Averill had released over Duluth gathered. It had nowhere to go. As she flew closer to Duluth, she spotted the massed might of the Adherents on the shore along Isle Royale, and she knew her friends were in trouble.
“They’re being attacked,” Jane reported as she stepped back out of the map.
“Who is?” Jacob asked.
“Everyone at Isle Royale,” Jane replied. “I think every black robe in the world in massed on the mainland.”
“What can we do?” Jacob replied. His mind raced. He couldn’t jump there from this distance, and even if he could, what could he do?
“The globe is a map,” Jane explained. An idea was taking shape in her mind, and she wondered if it would work. “It’s literally connected to the entire world. I think we can use it to jump to Isle Royale, but before we do, I’m going to try something. I don’t know if it’ll work, but I have to try to help everyone. There’s a cloud of darkness parked above Duluth, and it’s destroying the town. I’m going to move it over the black robe army and use it against them.”
Bella gasped. Even Eriunia paled at the suggestion.
“I’ve never heard of anyone doing such a thing,” Eriunia said. “You may not survive.”
“We have to try, or they’re going to wipe out everyone,” Jane replied. She paused and looked at each of them. There was doubt and fear in their faces, but she shook off the little bit of doubt that gnawed at her. “Wish me luck.”
“I’m going to do better than that,” Jacob replied. He took her hand and drew her close to give her a hug. “I’m going in with you.”
“So am I,” Bella declared. She fluttered to Jane’s shoulder and sat down with arm around Jane’s neck.
“Guys, I don’t know if this’ll work,” Jane pleaded. She didn’t want to be responsible for the deaths of all of her friends, but her heart warmed at the show of support. With her friends standing with her, she might stand a chance of succeeding.
“You’re not leaving me behind,” Eriunia added her voice to the others. She reached out and took Jane’s other hand in hers and looked at them. “Together, we can do this.” She reached out her hand to Coronia, which the former mermaid took willingly.
Jane felt her heart swell with pride as she looked at each of her friends and realized they were all willing to lay their lives on the line. “Here we go . . .” Jane cried out, and then all plunged toward the map.
23: Dark Storm
Jackie and Carvin were huddled in the castle as cannon fire continued to rain down on the city. Many fires were burning uncontrollably, and they had left orders for everyone to move to the tunnels underneath the city. Homes could be rebuilt, but lives lost were gone forever. Several long passages and mining chambers were located, and everyone who could walk was sheltered inside them waiting for the bombardment to stop.
On the surface, a few of the commanders and a handful of soldiers still manned the castle walls, waiting for the Adherents to send in their ground forces. For now, the black robes seemed content to launch projectiles with their long-range guns and pound the island.
“How long will it go on?” Jackie muttered. The castle walls shuddered as another round struck nearby, shaking dust free and sending it filtering through the air.
“I don’t know,” Carvin replied. He leaned on the table looking at a rough drawing of the island. If the Adherents launched their attack, they were completely vulnerable. A few scouts still reported in during the day, but it was dangerous to move in the city and Carvin didn’t want to risk others’ lives without a very good cause. They were entering the third day of attacks, and the Adherents showed no signs of letting up.
In the late afternoon, the cannons suddenly stopped, and Carvin feared the worst. He and Jackie gathered as many soldiers as they could and raced to the eastern outlooks. They knew what they would see when they arrived—it was just a matter of reaching the watchtowers.
“What in the world?” Carvin muttered. He vaulted up the steep stairs to reach the platform, which had somehow survived the cannon.
“The firing stopped a couple of minutes ago.”
Carvin glanced over at the scout, who had arrived just before they did, and waited for him to continue. The man offered him a spyglass.
“You’ll have to see for yourself,” the scout said.
Carvin brought the powerful spyglass up to his right eye and scanned the shoreline.
Above the black robes and stretched out along the hills overlooking Lake Superior was the massive cloud of darkness they had encountered near the Lookout Tower. It seemed to be spreading north from Duluth, flowing over the trees and land like a living creature in search of food. Each place the darkness touched, the black-robed soldiers vanished into the Divide. Shouts of panic rose from the gathered army. Many tried to run.
“How?” Carvin started to shout. His heart pounded wildly in his chest, and he thought the end was coming. There was nothing they could do but watch and wait.
“I don’t know.”
Carvin nodded to the scout, then handed the spyglass to Jackie. He waited anxiously while she took in the sight but even without the use of the looking aid, he was able to track the progress of the dark cloud. It looped around and spread in from the north, a vast bank rising up in the west and p
ushing toward the lake. A great wall of clouds pushed in from the south, as well, trapping almost the entire contingent of black-robed figures. The Adherents were caught in a noose that tightened until they were all standing with their backs to the lake. Like a massive thunderstorm, the black cloud rose up. The only thing missing were the massive bolts of lightning that normally accompanied a storm of this size. The darkness seemed to boil wildly for several minutes, then without warning it crashed down on the trapped Adherents. The entire army vanished without a trace. Not a single sound was heard for many minutes. It seemed the entire world had stopped to witness the destruction of the worst evil to face mortal kind in many years.
“Will it come here next?” Jackie asked breathlessly.
“I don’t know,” Carvin replied. They watched as the massive cloud of darkness rose up again, and its horrible head started to turn toward them. Rather than roll down over the island, however, it seemed to pause for a moment, as if torn between devouring the whole world and vanishing forever. Then, with agonizing slowness, it gathered up into the air into a great round ball and finally dissipated with a massive blast of sound and gust of wind. The accompanying flash of brilliant light, Carvin found out later, was noticed around the entire world.
“Jackie!”
Jackie looked up in confusion as Jane said her name. Standing in front of her were her sister, Jacob, Eriunia, Bella, and a beautiful girl with dark skin and flowing black hair. The fairy came over and gave her a big hug.
“Where?!” Jackie said in a stunned voice.
“How?” Carvin added in an even more stunned voice.
“Oh, do we have a story to tell you,” Jane said. “If I hadn’t just lived through it, I would have a hard time believing most of it was true.”
* * * * *
Two months had passed and Jane was standing on the deck of a cruise ship. Around her, the shining blue water and rocky coasts of the Greek islands slipped by. Standing next to her was Jacob and her mom. Jackie and Carvin were a few feet to her right, leaning on the railing of the great cruise ship. They all wore swimsuits, and Jane had on a wide-brimmed white hat to help shelter her eyes from the brilliant sunshine.
“Think she lives near here?” Jackie asked. She could still see the joy on Coronia’s face when she had walked up the shore and gave a poor-looking shepherd a joyous hug. They laughed and cried and laughed some more while the sheep just kept eating. After what seemed like hours, Jane had given the former mermaid one last hug, then she and Jacob stepped back into the Divide and traveled back to Duluth.
“This looks really close,” Jane said. It was hard to tell with so much of the coast looking the same, but she pointed to a spot where the rocks broke apart and a bit of green grass led almost down to the water. “Might have been right there.”
“What happens if someone finds the device again?” Mrs. Timbrill asked. She’d tried to follow the story Jane told her, but it was still a bit fuzzy in her mind. She felt sure her daughter had glossed over some of the details.
“Jackie and I took care of that,” Jane replied. “I don’t think anyone will ever find it ever again.” Her thoughts drifted to the last trip they had taken to the Soudan Mine. The tunnels leading into the chamber holding the Device were now blocked by a dozen feet of cold iron drawn from the ground around it and set in place by Jackie. They made sure to cover both sides of the Divide, and she was sure no one would ever find their way inside ever again.
There had been some political maneuvering between the Free North and the people holding Puck, but that had been worked out. Once the powers of the old world realized what the Adherents had been planning, they freed the goblin and turned their attentions to other matters. The goblin was once again roaming free in the city of Duluth. Even better, Jane heard that local governments had seized most of the Temple’s property. Those few Adherents who had escaped would find themselves broke and without friends on either side of the Divide.
High on the hill overlooking Duluth, a great monument was taking shape. People from all over the world were coming and helping with the construction. With the Temple all but destroyed, the winds of change were blowing across the lands of myth and legend. People who had lived under oppression were finally free, and this time Jackie and Carvin believed they were not likely to give up their freedom so easily.
Jane turned away from the coast and leaned on the railing, “I don’t know about you guys, but I think that row of deck chairs is calling to us.”
“Best idea I have heard in weeks.” Mrs. Timbrill said with a laugh. She stepped around a wet spot on the deck, then eased down onto one of the recliners and tipped her head back. “By the way, you never did tell me how Lenny got away from the mine.”
“I phoned him a couple of days later,” Jacob said. “Apparently he stayed at the controls until the police arrived the next day,” he groaned. “But you know Lenny, he thought being arrested for trespassing was worth it just to have that experience. Of course, they let him sit in a holding cell for almost a day before his dad came and got him. I think a drunk threw up on him. Might have ruined the experience for him,” Jacob admitted with a short laugh. “He’s doing fine.”
They laughed. The sun drifted behind a cloud just a moment before reappearing.
“Wake me up for supper,” Jacob said. He lay down in a lounge chair next to Jane and took her hand in his. With a happy sigh, Jacob closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep as the warm sun relaxed his body.
Unseen by the people on the cruise ship, deep in the water below the hull, a mermaid’s tail flashed in the evening sun as one of Coronia’s relatives looked up at the passing boat. Some of the merfolk had survived the Adherent attacks ages before and now lived hidden on this side of the Divide. But news traveled fast, and they were already searching for a way back to their own world. With word of the fall of the Temple, things were starting to be set right.
The End
The Map Maker's Choice Page 21
