As he’d been doing for the last five minutes, he called out to the kids: “David! Xander!” His voice bounced against the stone and scurried away like a small animal afraid of the light.
They can’t be here, he thought. The way the walls of the cave hurled his voice far ahead of him, they would have heard him by now, he was sure of it. They would have called back, and he would have heard something, even if it was the faintest vibration of air. But he’d heard nothing.
Where could they have gone? He was sure he had gone into the same antechamber David had disappeared into. He had kept his eyes on it, and the door was still open when he had arrived. Unless following Phemus had somehow altered the way the portals worked. Maybe David and Xander had never been in the cave. Maybe Phemus had pulled them somewhere else completely.
The torch’s flame flickered and fluttered, as though in a brisk wind. All he saw was blackness. He listened: silence. The whole time, there had been a faint breeze blowing through the cave from the entrance. But whatever moved the flame now was stronger. The flame flickered, bending like fingers back toward the front of the cave. He turned around to head in the direction of the pointing fire.
Then he felt it, first in the torch, then the spear. They were vibrating . . . pulling. The portal! He began running, retracing his steps through the cave.
It was either the portal home, or perhaps the portal that David and Xander had gone into. Either way, he would find out. The items’ pull grew stronger, and he entered a cavern. He remembered passing through it. It was like a big, domed room. In the center, his light had reached up only as far as the tips of stalactites—rock formations hanging like icicles from the ceiling.
Now he could see all of the stalactites, as well as the tallest part of the ceiling. A shimmering rectangle hovered higher than his head, throwing out a rainbow of sparkling light. The flames whipped toward it, then disappeared, as though the portal had sucked up the fire itself. He released the torch. It flew into the rippling rectangle and disappeared. The spear quivered violently. It slipped through his hand and vanished, presumably joining the torch on the other side.
But how was he going to go through? It was too high to leap into. He looked around at the cavern’s stalagmites—like stalactites, but rising from the ground. They appeared too fragile and were definitely too pointed for him to climb and jump from. He spotted a broken one, similar in shape and size to a tree stump. If he leaped from it, his hands would reach the portal—but was that enough? Would the portal pull the rest of his body through?
Something appeared in the portal, startling him. A black shape. Hazy at first, it took on the form of a man. The figure was just standing there, legs slightly apart, hands at its sides. It appeared to be wearing a cape, which fluttered and whipped around in the portal’s currents. Then Keal realized: not a cape, but a black overcoat. At the head, long black hair snapped one way then another.
Taksidian.
Keal waited for him to fall through. When he didn’t—he seemed to simply hover there—Keal lost his patience. He planted his foot on the broken stalagmite, leaped, and grabbed the man’s ankles.
CHAPTER
thirteen
David and Xander ran around the corner onto a short roadway that rose from the docks and ended at the square. They hit the square and beelined it for the path that would take them to Taksidian’s house. If Xander were right, no one would give them a second thought.
Stomping right behind Xander, David glanced around and mentally kicked himself. He remembered the other day, when Phemus had attacked them in their house and chased them into the clearing. Everything Xander said their enemy couldn’t do, he did. David had told Xander, “Anything else you think he can’t do, so I have a heads-up about what he’s going to do?”
It was a lesson his brother apparently hadn’t learned, for now the two of them seemed to be the only things the Atlantians noticed. The brawlers at the center of the square, the vendors, the pedestrians—they were all glaring at them. Several pointed. Others shouted. A few started toward them. David saw the kids who had tried to kill him. They were back in the corral on the opposite side of the square, push-ing and taunting each other into another fight. They heard the shouts, spotted him, and clambered through the fence rails to come after him.
“Xander!” David yelled.
“I see them! Keep running!”
“But—“ David said. More people dropped what they were doing to move in.
“We can make it to the path before they reach us!” Xander said.
That means we can’t, David thought, but he didn’t see anywhere else to run. At least they were heading for a portal. He picked up speed, pulled up beside Xander, and passed him. His speed encouraged his brother to push harder, and he stayed with him. At first, all he saw ahead of him was a wall of vines and leaves. As he drew closer, the path’s opening became a vertical band of shadow among the foliage.
Xander was right: they were going to beat the Atlantians to it. Still, their shouts, combined with the increasingly loud slapping of their feet, sounded to David like a rising, clat-tering movie soundtrack—one that signaled the coming of something terrible. It scared the tar out of him, and he was certain he would trip or miss the path and entangle himself in the vines or simply choke and freeze in place.
But then he was there, swinging onto the path. He grabbed the gate on his right to stop himself. Xander crashed into him, and was working the latch before David even remembered there was a latch. The gate swung open, and they stumbled through it. Xander slammed it closed.
David turned to run up the path to the house, but Xander grabbed him. “Give me my belt!” he said. “Hurry!”
“What?” David said. “Why?” He slipped the belt over his head and handed it over.
Xander unbuckled it, looped it through the bars of the gate, and tied it in a knot. He made another knot, then a third. David watched his brother’s muscles bulge as he pulled each one tight.
The first of the Atlantians stomped up to the gate: the two men who had fought in the center of the square. They were big and strong and bloody. They sputtered out sharp words David didn’t understand and thrust their arms through the bars. Xander backed away.
“Let’s go!” David said.
“Hold on a sec,” Xander said, leaning over to rest his palms on his knees. He was panting hard.
The men rattled the gate. They hadn’t spotted the belt yet. A crowd was piling up behind them, wailing—David was sure—for their heads.
“Xander!” He couldn’t believe it, Xander standing right there, not four feet from a mob trying to get him. He had a feeling his brother loved it. It was his way of telling them Ha!Thought you had me, didn’t you? Ha!
“Can’t,” Xander said. “Got a stitch in my side.”
“You’ll have more than that if those guys get through. Come on!”
Xander looked at the crowd, then swiveled his face to David. He was smiling.
“What?” David screamed.
“You know what I thought of when you ran past me back there?”
“Tell me later,” David said. He took a couple of steps, then stopped because Xander hadn’t moved.
“That joke,” Xander said. “You know, the two guys run-ning from a lion. One of them says, ‘What are we doing? We can’t outrun a lion!’ The other says, ‘I don’t have to. I just have to outrun you!’ ”
Despite his fear, David smiled . . . a little. He said, “Well, that’s going to come true if you don’t get moving. Look!” The bulky fighter had found the belt and was working on the first knot. The crowd behind him was shoving him into the gate, making his task more difficult.
Thank you, God, David thought.
Xander rose, took a deep breath and—finally!—started up the path toward David. They ran again, around the bend, ascending toward Taksidian’s house.
“What about Taksidian and Phemus?” David said.
“You said,” Xander said, pushing out words between breaths, �
�they headed up here awhile ago. They’re probably gone. Back to the house.”
“And if they aren’t?”
“I don’t know, Dae! But what choice do we have?”
The house was directly in front of them, up the last steep incline. They reached the terrace and stopped.
“I don’t think those people are on the path yet,” David whis-pered. “I can still hear the gate rattling.” And their voices, which had melded into a single rumbling roar, seemed far away. But that might have only been the foliage absorbing their cries.
Xander hitched his head toward the front door and put his finger over his lips. He unlatched the door and pushed it open. Through the threshold, David could see the portal. His heart skipped a beat: the heavy stone door was closed over it. Xander stepped in and moved toward it. He turned to wave David in.
They were halfway to the portal door when something in the room creaked. David turned to see Phemus rising up from the bed.
CHAPTER
fourteen
FRIDAY, 1:25 P.M.
PINEDALE, CALIFORNIA
Keal felt himself pulled up and into the portal. He had the sensation of tumbling through space, but still he gripped Taksidian’s boots as though they were a lifeline, because they probably were. Light flashed into his eyes with the force of an explosion. He landed gut-down on a hard surface and squinted at the antechamber around him.
Taksidian was scrambling along the floor toward the hall-way door, pistoning his legs, trying to shake free of Keal.
The portal door slammed into Keal’s thigh. It pushed him sideways as it tried to close. He remembered David telling him how the door had cut a metal bat in half. It would have no problem slicing through his legs. But he couldn’t move forward with Taksidian kicking like this, and he couldn’t get his leg up under himself enough to let the door swing past.
The door shoved him farther, pinching his legs into the doorjamb. Even so, there was no way he was going to let Taksidian go. Not until he knew where the boys were.
He rolled onto his back, using all the strength in his arms to force Taksidian to roll with him. He threw his legs up high, using their momentum and the leverage of Taksidian’s ankles to lift his backside, then his hips and torso. As his body sailed over his head, he tucked his head in to complete the somer-sault. The door slammed closed.
He released his grip on Taksidian and sat down hard on the man’s stomach. He heard him oomph! Keal was facing his foe’s feet. Before he could decide on his next move, pain flared in his sides, and he screamed. He grabbed Taksidian’s hands and pulled the man’s claws from his flesh. Keal spun off him, rose, and stumbled back into a corner of the room. He rubbed his fingers over his sides, feeling warm wetness, stabbing pain. He looked at his hands, covered in blood.
Taksidian lay on his back, glaring up at him. He snapped his head to one side, clearing the hair from his face. He smiled.
Holding his sides, gritting his teeth, Keal groaned. He said, “Where are they, David and Xander?”
Ignoring his question, Taksidian said, “Now that was one wild ride. Where did you come from?” He laughed and propped himself up on his elbows. “I mean, one second I’m coming through a portal, and the next I got you clinging to me like a remora.”
Keal gaped at him.
“You know,” Taksidian continued, “one of those blood-sucker fish that attach themselves to sharks—“
“Where are the boys?” Keal repeated, almost growling out the words. “It’s not a coincidence they went into that cave, and that’s where I found you. Where are they?”
Taksidian looked at his bloody nails. He said, “They’re gone, my friend. Eleven thousand years gone. ”
Gone. The word hit Keal like an arrow.
“Not dead,” Taksidian said, “but as good as.”
Not dead. That’s what he wanted to hear. “Take me to them. Now.”
Taksidian sat up and Keal crouched, ready to dive into him. Taksidian held up his palm to stop him. He placed a hand on the bench, lifted himself, and slid onto it. He said, “Take you to them? I don’t think so.”
Keal’s eyes flicked to an item on the floor near his feet: the spear, which had sailed through the portal ahead of him. He stooped for it. From the corner of his eyes, he saw Taksidian come off the bench. Keal lifted the spear and swung it around, stopping Taksidian in his tracks. The sharp antler at the tip of the spear hovered an inch from the man’s chest.
Keal noticed a dagger in Taksidian’s hand. Where . . . how . . . ? The guy was fast.
As if to prove it, Taksidian’s arm swung around in a blur, knocking the spear aside. And he moved in.
CHAPTER
fifteen
Phemus raised his hands and started across the floor toward them.
David lunged for the portal as Xander went for the house’s exit, and they slammed into each other.
“Xan—“ David said, but his brother already had hold of him and was shoving-lifting-carrying him out the door.
“Move!” Xander said. “We don’t have time to move that stone in front of the portal.”
Entangled with each other, they stumbled onto the terrace. David’s broken arm smacked down, and he screamed.
The sound of the mob reached them, loud and close. They looked down to the path and saw the first of them—the brawlers—barreling toward them. David glanced back to see Phemus filling the doorway, stepping out.
Xander pulled David up. He tossed him over the stone rail-ing that separated the terrace from a steep grassy hill. David swiveled in midair to avoid landing on his injured arm. He face-planted into the turf. His legs flipped over, and he was tumbling. He caught a quick glimpse of Xander diving over the railing, Phemus’s huge hands reaching for his feet. David went end over end, seeing nothing but sky . . . grass . . . sky . . . grass. . . . He stuck his arm out, which pivoted his body, and he rolled. The view didn’t change . . . sky . . . grass . . . sky . . . grass . . . but the journey was easier on his body.
Xander tumbled behind him. Farther up the hill, Phemus trudged down, holding his arms out for balance, waddling back and forth, trying to control his descent. And behind him, the first of the Atlantians were leaping over the railing.
David tried to slow himself down to see where he was head-ing. The grassy hill ended at a narrow footpath. Lining its far edge were small boulders, embedded in the ground between the path and a wide river. As he rolled, he only saw brief flashes of it, but he knew what was on the other side of the river: the beautiful land of sparkling streams, structures that seemed more like artwork than architecture, and bushes trimmed to look like animals. Watching over all of it was the golden castle at the top of a mountain. The difference between that side of the river and this one could not have been greater if they were from different universes. Heaven and hell.
Rolling, rolling, he thought of the happy families he’d seen on the other side. But they were on that side and he was on this side. Of course he was running—rolling—for his life while they picnicked. Of course screams of hate filled his ears while music filled theirs.
He hit the path, skidded, flipped, and landed on the boulders. He blinked at the water five feet below him. His reflection blinked back, a boy with wild hair and wilder eyes. Xander slammed into a boulder beside him, cracking his head hard.
“Oooh,” Xander said, slapping his hand on the back of his skull.
David scrambled up. Phemus was halfway down, the mob closing the gap behind him. David gave Xander a hand up and looked both directions along the path. Going left would take them back to the village and the square. The other way was unknown; the path continued along the river and disappeared around a bend, where dense woods sprang up. “Which way?” he said.
Xander pulled the metallic stone from his pocket and held it up. It seemed to hop out of his hand. It struck the ground, bounced and spun like a top, and rolled away along the path toward the wood.
Xander pointed at it. “Run!”
David took off.
Even at full speed, he was falling farther and farther behind the stone. It rolled, popped up, came down, continued rolling, faster than before.
Like the square, the path was just plain gross. At first, David tried to dodge around the dead fish, animal bones, and chicken heads. But as the stone picked up speed, he stomped over all of it.
The stone popped up, and in midair it jerked to the left. It bounced off a boulder and vanished over the edge. It plunked into the water, spreading ripples like rings of heated air from an atomic bomb.
David slid to a stop. “Xander!” he yelled, watching the rip-ples fade. He spun as his brother caught up to him. Phemus and at least twenty Atlantians had reached the path and were booking toward them.
Xander stared at the spot where the stone had disappeared.
“It’s gone,” David said. “It just popped up and fell into the river.”
“No,” Xander said. “It didn’t fall. It was pulled.”
The surface still rippled, but not from the stone. It was a portal.
“Go,” Xander said.
David didn’t have to be told twice. He jumped and watched the portal grow large between his kicking feet. He plunged into the water. It was cold, knocking the air out of him. And salty, stinging his eyes. His stomach lurched and his head spun. He closed his eyes and waited for it to be over.
CHAPTER
sixteen
FRIDAY, 1:27 P. M.
Taksidian moved quickly, stepping toward Keal as soon as the spear was away from his chest. The man snapped the dagger up, but Keal knew better. It was an old hand-to-hand combat trick: pretend to do the expected, and most people expected that knife-wielding attackers would thrust downward. But war-riors knew the most lethal and effective knife attacks came from below, underhanded. He reached down and caught Taksidian’s arm as it swooped down and up toward the bottom of his rib cage.
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