by Alane Adams
What was a fish doing in Chuggies?
Keely kept fighting her way forward. Either the door was farther than she thought, or the water was pushing her backward. Finally, as her lungs were about to explode, the current died down. A strange light shone above her. She could see blue sky on the other side. Keely didn’t have time to question where it came from. She kicked hard and broke through the surface, dragging in a lungful of air. She shook wet hair out of her face and looked around.
Chuggies was gone. And all of Pilot Rock. Replaced by a pristine lake rimmed by thick willowy trees. The lake from her dreams. The sun was just cresting above the horizon. A low mist clung to the surface of the water. In the distance, a snow-capped mountain rose. Ravens cawed a greeting from the trees lining the small lake. And then a large noble bird flew over, dipping down to snatch a speckled fish in its beak.
Keely nearly shouted with joy as she recognized the distinctive orange- and cinnamon-tipped feathers and the snowy white chest. That was a iolar. The same species as Rego’s departed companion, Lagos.
Which meant they were back. In Orkney.
Next to her, Leo broke the surface with a loud gasp. “Where’s Howie?” He spun around in the water.
Keely searched the area. Leave it to Howie to get lost. She was about to dive under to search for him when he popped up behind them, gasping for air.
Howie let out a whoop. “What’s up, Orkney!” he shouted, pumping his fist in the air.
Keely sighed with relief, exchanging grins with Leo, and then the trio swam to shore. They wrung out their clothes, shivering in the brisk air.
“What just happened?” Keely asked, looking from Leo to Howie as she squeezed water out of her thick hair.
“It’s what I was trying to tell you,” Leo said. “Those weren’t dreams we were having, they were premonitions. Someone was sending a message.”
“I bet my buddy Sam did the old toilet-flush trick to get us back to Orkney. Obviously he needs our help,” Howie answered, polishing his glasses and replacing them. Miraculously they had stayed on in that washtub. He looked a bit ridiculous in his dripping Chuggies uniform. The white shirt clung to his chest. The matching pants were mud-streaked and ripped on the knee. His red bow tie had come untied and hung limply.
Leo absently rubbed the twisting scar on his arm, the one he’d gotten from the Shun Kara bite the day he and Sam first met. “What if it’s Endera up to her old tricks?”
Keely thought about it, then shook her head. “No. Endera didn’t do this. Do you remember what Brunin said to us? Back on Asgard?” They had encountered a giant warrior bear named Brunin while exploring Asgard, one Mavery claimed was actually Odin.
Leo nodded. “He said the day would come when Sam would need us to stand by him.”
“What if that day is now?”
Leo remained silent, skeptical.
Howie clasped his hands on their shoulders. “Listen, my buddy Sam has always had my back. Friends stand together— that’s what he would say when someone bullied me. I say it’s time we stood by Sam.” He thrust one scrawny fist out. “To Orkney.”
There was silence. Like it or not, they were here. Keely wasn’t sure she was ready for an adventure of this size, but something prodded her on. The idea that Sam needed her to do this. To be brave when what she really wanted was to dive back in the lake and swim home as fast as she could. “To finding Sam,” Keely said, placing her fist in the circle.
They waited, watching Leo’s face, needing him to join in.
“To staying alive,” Leo added ruefully, covering Keely’s hand with his.
Chapter Four
Hello? Is anybody there?”
Sam’s words were met with silence. He had awoken to find himself lying on a slab of cold stone. He sat up, trying to adjust to the darkness. Where was he? His head was fuzzy, like his brains had been scrambled.
Think, Baron, he said to himself. How did you get here? Last thing he remembered, he had been walking along with Speria . . . or was it Heppner? And then he had stepped into some black goo.
Sam got to his feet and found his legs were wobbly, but held him. He reached for the familiar pouch he wore around his neck, but it was gone. Feeling bereft, he blinked in the darkness, wishing he had light. He rubbed his cold hands together and then snapped his fingers. A flicker of light appeared over his palm. It was weak, but at least he could make out his chamber.
There wasn’t much to see: Roughhewn walls carved out of solid black granite. A stone floor spattered with the water that dripped down from unseen cracks in the ceiling. The air was oppressive, like there were fifty stories of cold unfeeling rock above him. A metal door had been notched in the wall. Sam shivered, feeling the cold press in on him.
“You got lousy service here,” he joked out loud. “Where’s the double cheeseburger I ordered? And my extra pillows haven’t been delivered. You’re not going to like the review I leave online. Zero stars for this joint.” His voice echoed off the walls, pinging back at him, piercing his skin like acid-tipped darts to remind him how alone in the universe he was.
Sam’s eyes fell on the door. He ran his hands over it. The seams fit snug into the rock. There was no latch on the inside. Maybe magic could open it.
He stepped back, shaking out the tension in his hands. His light went out, but he focused on opening the door. Channeling his magic, he put all his energy into creating a spell that would get him out of this prison. He said the words aloud, to add strength to his spell, and because he needed to hear a voice, even if it was his own.
“Fein kinter, terminus,” he said, then thrust forward with his palms. Emerald-tinged light shot from his palms and hit the door, which glowed brightly. Sam’s hope flared, but then the magic crackled and pooled in the center of the door and then zinged back at him, zapping him so hard that his teeth hurt and his hands went numb.
So it was enchanted. Good to know.
He needed to think this through. Sam sat down, then laid back, staring into the darkness. If magic couldn’t get him out, he would have to wait and see what the witches wanted. They had to be behind his kidnapping. Who else had the power to plant some kind of magical black tar and kidnap him? Only Catriona.
If Howie were here, he would find some way to make a joke about it. When Endera had locked him in her dungeon, Howie had befriended a rathos he named Bert. A tsunami of loneliness washed over Sam. He missed his friends. How long since he had last seen them? Six months? He remembered Keely’s laughter around the campfire the night before they set out for Asgard. Mavery’s little dance, her antics entertaining them all. And Leo, stoic and brave, but a true friend.
He wondered what they were doing. They had probably gone on with their lives, and their algebra homework, and forgotten all about him. Howie had probably beaten all ninety-nine levels of Zombie Wars III. Heck, he was probably playing Zombie Wars V by now. Sam wallowed around in his self-pity until a strange sound made him turn his head. A skittering sound. Like something was crawling across the stone.
He tensed, his nerves firing on all pistons as he sat up, listening hard to decipher the noise.
There it was again. A soft scratching.
“Who’s there?”
The noise stopped. Sam held his breath, waiting. When it didn’t reoccur, he relaxed, about to lie down, but then he heard it again, louder this time. Bolder.
There was something in the cell with him. Sam’s heart started beating faster. His hands were still numb, but he rubbed them together as the sounds got closer, trying to get his light back. He snapped his fingers. There was a spark, but nothing happened. He did it again, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck stand up as something brushed against his leg.
Fear made his fingers slick with sweat. He tried again, focusing everything on this one tiny spell. Light flared long enough for him to see his cell clearly.
It was crawling with scorpions. Dozens of them. As big as lobsters.
Deathstalkers, his mind supplied. He could
tell by their oversized red bodies and the yellow bands across their pincers. Their tails curved up around their backs, tipped with lethal-looking stingers guaranteed to deliver a fatal dose of poison.
“Get back!” He scrambled away, but there were more behind him. They surrounded him.
Was this some kind of nightmare he was reliving? Endera had tried to kill him once by dropping a Deathstalker in his crib. Sam tried blasting them with witchfire, but his numb hands wouldn’t work. The first creature bit him on the ankle.
He let out a yell as a fire burned in his blood. The venom acted like nitroglycerin, sending his heart rate skyrocketing. His light flickered out, and he was left in the darkness. Another bit him on the thigh. He kicked them away, but they kept coming.
Catriona stared into the glowing malachite orb. She had uncovered it from the bowels of this moldering pile of stones Endera and the others called home. It had been covered in dust and cobwebs. A useless piece of glass to anyone else. In her hands, it came alive. Showed her what she desired most.
And right now, she desired watching the young witch-boy suffer. In the fog of the rounded glass, his body twisted and contorted under the ministrations of her deadly pets.
“Is he dead yet?” Agathea hissed over her shoulder.
They were in Catriona’s private quarters, high up in the north tower of the Tarkana fortress. She had commandeered the entire wing. Rectangular openings carved into the walls allowed her to view the dank, steamy swamps below. Fat candles dripped wax on the stone floor. The light flickered as a cold wind blew in. It was raining out. Lightning slashed the sky. A stormy day, perfectly suited to her mood.
Annoyed at the interruption, Catriona waved her hand over the glass, sending the Deathstalkers away. “I didn’t bring him here to kill him.”
“You wish to torture him. Fine, let me unleash my rathos on him,” Agathea coaxed, a white stripe of hair falling over her face. She drew an oversized rodent from her pocket. “They will eat him alive. Slow as you want,” Agathea promised, lovingly stroking her pet.
Behind her, the voiceless Beatrixe waved her hands in the air, signaling her silent agreement. Wizened old Bronte ignored them, her bent figure huddled over a cauldron. She stirred it slowly, muttering one of her incantations.
Catriona seated herself on a broad velveteen chair in front of the fire. “Calm yourself, sister. He is far more valuable to us alive.”
“He tried to kill me,” Agathea sulked, seating herself across from Catriona. “Perhaps you grow soft. The brat fights for those Orkadian filth.”
Catriona gave her a look of such intense anger that the other witch shrank back in her seat. She raised her hand and made a fist. The rathos in Agathea’s hands squeaked in agony, its eyes bulging.
“Sister, I am sorry,” Agathea pleaded. “I didn’t mean to offend.”
The rat began to shake and then exploded into a puff of black smoke, drizzling ash onto Agathea’s lap.
Catriona seethed. “You know what I desire, what I have plotted for centuries. Vengeance for our father.”
“And you will have it, sister.” Agathea trembled.
“Killing Odin is no small feat. He would never let us close enough. But at last, the key to Odin’s destruction is in our hands.”
Old Bronte cackled as her brew bubbled over. It gave off a cloud of steam that smelled deliciously of rotted beets and dried toad legs. “Odin’s blood can take Odin’s blood,” she sang out, dragging her cauldron to her potion table.
Catriona smiled. “Exactly. Samuel Barconian spans both bloodlines.” She stood and moved to the mantle, opening the jeweled case that rested there and lifting the heavy black dagger her father had imbued with his magic. “He is a Son of Odin and a Son of Rubicus. He alone can get close enough to place this blade into Odin’s treacherous heart.”
“Impossible,” Agathea sniped. “He is just a child.”
“The same child who released us from our prison,” Catriona sniped back. She replaced the blade and paced in front of the hearth. “He has a darkness inside of him. I feel it. He fights it, but if he is pushed, he will turn to our side. The Deathstalkers are there to fill his veins with poison, turning him to our purpose and draining his soul of all hope. And because I enjoy watching him suffer.”
Bronte’s voice rose above the clatter of her potion making. “The venom will do its part. We shall supply the rest.” She opened a small glass vial, using a pair of tweezers to remove a long brown hair. “I have saved this for centuries, waiting for the right moment to use it.”
Catriona hurried to her potion table. It was filled with jars and bottles with names even she didn’t recognize. She studied the hair. “What is it? The hair of a sneevil?”
“A single hair from the head of Rubicus.” Bronte dropped it into an empty goblet, then ladled some of the liquid from her cauldron and swirled it around. The liquid bubbled and frothed. A purplish fog trickled out, rising up in a snaking trail. “Behold the essence of his dark magic. One taste of this and the boy will forget every good thought he ever had.” She held up a bottle, capturing the fog inside and sealing it with a cork.
Catriona’s eyes glowed with excitement. “Nothing can get in our way once we put our plan into motion,” she crowed. “Absolutely nothing.”
Chapter Five
After hours of hiking through Orkney woods so dense only glimpses of sky peeked through, Keely declared themselves hopelessly lost. Trees towered overhead, their gnarled branches twisting and twining to form a canopy that kept the air dank and cool. Strings of feathery moss trailed down from the boughs. The ground was soft under feet with a thick layer of dead leaves. As they passed a fallen log, Keely spied a soggy blue candy wrapper and knelt down.
“Whoa, what’s a Nut Buddy wrapper doing here?” Howie asked in awe.
Keely rolled her eyes at him. “I’m guessing you dropped it, dope. Obviously we’re going in circles. And thanks for sharing.” She shoved the wrapper at him, then plopped herself down on the log, feeling her frustration rise.
“I was hungry,” Howie said with an unapologetic grin. “I found it in my pocket.”
“Great,” Keely huffed. “We’re going to starve before we ever figure out why we’re here.” When they had struck off away from the lake, she had expected things to magically fall into place. But the exhilaration of finding themselves back in Orkney was fading, and reality was setting in. “We have no idea where we are, or how far the nearest town is. And what are our parents going to think? My dad is probably freaking out right now.”
Leo knelt by her side. “Something powerful brought us here. I’m sure it will guide us forward. And there’s nothing we can do about our families. We have to be patient and figure this out.”
“Yeah, Sam’s probably right around the next bend,” Howie said confidently, yapping on about how excited Sam would be when he saw them.
Keely’s ears picked up another sound. “Shh,” she said, listening. The rumbling sound of a voice filtered through the trees.
“Someone’s close by,” Leo said, rising to his feet.
But Keely was already wading through bushes, following the sounds until she reached a clearing covered in soft grass sprinkled with blue wildflowers. A bright shaft of sunlight lit up an ancient stone well. A crow balanced on the battered shingled roof, bobbing its head at an old man. The man had a long beard that flowed to his knobby knees. He wasn’t very tall, about Keely’s height, and not much more than skin and bones. One eye appeared larger than the other. His white tunic was stained with age and time. A thick rope hung down from the well roof. The man hauled it up, until it dangled a wooden bucket dripping with water.
Shakily, he poured water from the bucket into a weathered wooden bowl and then hunkered down over the bowl, stirring it with one long, dirt-stained finger.
“Excuse me,” Keely said.
He startled, knocking the bowl over, then cursed as the liquid seeped into the ground.
“Feregen, child. You don’t sn
eak up on an old man like that. Now look what you did.” Using a gnarled stick to lever himself up, he lifted the bucket back over the well and lowered it down again.
Leo nudged her, and she took the opportunity to draw closer.
“I’m Keely.” She gave a hesitant smile. “This is Leo, and Howie. We’re here. We made it,” she added, in case her meaning was unclear.
“I know who you are,” he muttered with a dark scowl. “Like I have nothing better to do than run around doing Odin’s bidding. Don’t just stand there, boy,” he snapped at Leo. “Help an old man.”
Leo stepped in and took the rope from him, lowering the bucket hand over hand.
“You were sent by Odin?” Keely’s heart quickened. She exchanged excited glances with Leo and Howie.
“Odin and I have an arrangement.” The old man snickered. “I plucked his right eye from his head, just like that.” He snapped his fingers in her face.
Keely tried to remember the stories she had read in the library. Odin had sacrificed an eye to gain wisdom.
“You’re Mimir!” she blurted out.
The old man danced a little jig. “Mimir the Wise, at your service.”
“Who’s Mimir?” Leo asked, drawing the full bucket to the ledge.
Pieces of the story came back to her. “According to legend, Mimir was an ancient sage who possessed great wisdom. Odin traded Mimir to the Vanir, frost giants who lived in an icy northern realm, in exchange for peace. Odin promised them a fountain of knowledge, but Mimir spouted nonsense. The frost giants were so angry, they sent Mimir’s head back to Odin in a bag.”
“Ouch!” Howie murmured, rubbing his neck. “So if this guy’s Mimir, why’s he still got his head?”
