Fate smiled and shook her head. “Same old Sithias. It’s okay. We’ll have the upper hand as soon as we find Finn.” She turned and hit the button to the breeching door before any of them could see the doubt creeping back in.
But Jessie caught it. Her friend didn’t say a word, she simply signaled it was time to leave and jumped through the hatch. Forcing a brave smile for her father and Sithias, Fate leapt into space, terrified of what awaited them down below.
46
The Whitethorn Tree
AFTER FOLLOWING FAROUK’S COORDINATES, Fate and Jessie landed. They killed the engines of their aeronaut packs, drew their laser guns and scanned their surroundings. After deducing all was clear, they relaxed somewhat.
“Looks like the right place.” Jessie craned her neck to look at the top of the tower. “I don’t know how we’re supposed to get down below this thing. From everything I know about towers, they only go up.”
Fate stared at the ornate tower with its smooth, needle-sharp point. “Don’t assume anything, just quiet your mind and wait for what comes.”
Jessie gave her a questioning stare. “Since when did you turn into a Zen monk?”
“I’m nowhere near Zen. In fact, I’m barely holding it together at the moment. I have no idea if Finn’s dead or alive.” Fate fought to hold back the tears that so readily sprang to her eyes everytime she let her thoughts touch on her worst fears.
“Sorry,” Jessie muttered.
Fate drew in a shaky breath and clutched at the tight, painful ache in her chest. “No, I’m sorry. You’re the last person I should be snapping at.” She tapped her temple with her finger. “Remember the guardian initiation and the download you received?”
“How could I forget? It felt like someone hammered a nine-inch nail through my skull.”
“That’s because you had the combined experience and knowledge of hundreds of guardians crammed into your brain all at once. Which means you can access whatever you need to know about the Keep and everything in it.”
“Oh right. I remember Farouk saying something about that, but I was kind of out of it at the time. So how do I get it to work?”
Fate struggled to hold her impatience at bay. “That’s the quiet your mind part. How about we both take a second and try it now.”
“Someone’s getting snappy again.”
Fate flashed an exaggerated smile. “No. I’m not.” She turned her attention back to the tower. “Okay, closing my eyes now. You too,” she said, using the happiest tone of voice she could muster.
The information flooded Fate’s mind immediately. Visions of blossoms and thorns, and wise men in flaxen robes stood in a circle with a tree in the center. A name emerged and she began to say it when Jessie interrupted.
“The Tower of the Whitethorn Tree. How awesome is that? It just came to me!”
Fate nodded. “Yup, that’s how it works.”
“Come on, let’s go in.”
They slowly entered the arched entrance with laser guns aimed and ready. The dim interior was lit with tiny luminescent particles floating in the air like snowflakes. As Fate and Jessie edged forward the lights scattered in all directions.
The round chamber was empty, save for the colossal statues lining the circular walls. There were nine of them, each as tall as the tower, their heads bending where the ceiling curved into a point. Each statue was a hooded figure with arms crossed and stern bearded face frowning down at them. They were the wise men Fate had seen in her mind’s eye, and by their fierce expressions, they seemed to be standing guard over…nothing.
Fate walked into the center. “Where’s the tree? It should be here.”
Jessie peered at the statues. “Maybe that’s why all those Gandalf look-a-likes seem kinda grumpy. Do you think Wodrid stole it?”
“I don’t know, something tells me there’s more to this picture.” Holstering her gun, Fate switched on her aeronaut pack and lifted off.
“You think the tree’s up there?” Jessie called after her.
Fate didn’t answer and continued to climb until she was level with the faces of the statues. She glanced down at Jessie, noticing for the first time, the maze-like design of the tiles on the floor. “Jessie, stand on that round tile in the center,” she yelled down.
Jessie did as Fate instructed. When nothing happened, she looked up and held her hands out in frustration. “That’s your brilliant solution?”
Fate hovered in place, studying the pattern from the same vantage point as the guardians in the room. Then she saw the break in the outer ring of the tiles. “Stand over there.” She waved her arms in the direction she wanted Jessie to go.
Jessie followed her directions, though rather begrudgingly.
“Good, now follow the path.”
Jessie looked at her. “What path?”
“The beige tiles.”
“It’s all beige.”
“The lighter beige tiles.”
Jessie shot Fate an irritated look before taking her first steps along the zig zagging path.
“No, that’s the wrong way,” Fate said when Jessie came to a dead end. “Turn around and turn left at the next bend.”
“This is a waste of time.”
Rather than lose her temper, Fate bit her tongue and patiently steered her reluctant friend along the maze until she finally reached the center.
Jessie glanced at her with an expression of being thoroughly unimpressed. “Now what?”
Fate gulped. She’d thought surely, she’d cracked the code to gaining access to the secret entrance. What else could the statues be staring at? “Jump up and down.” Fate slowly descended.
Jessie crossed her arms. “Seriously? I think I’d be better off saying ‘open sesame’ or–”
The round tile beneath Jessie suddenly jerked beneath her. The sound of grating stone echoed throughout the voluminous chamber as the large tile sank below the floor line.
Fate swooped down to land on the tile next to Jessie and turned off her aeronaut pack. “You were saying?”
Jessie smirked. “It was the ‘open sesame’ that did it.”
“Uh huh.” Fate squinted into the dark as they descended a good fifteen feet below the floor of the chamber. As they neared the bottom, a cloud of light particles like those above but thicker, illuminated the stone walls.
Fate stepped off the tile, watching the tiny lights as they floated toward the opening. “We’re on the right track. The faery lights are coming from down here. Just a guess, but I’m pretty sure that means Wodrid used this entrance.”
“If that’s true, he could be anywhere.” Jessie kept her voice low as she looked around. “Jinkies, don’t you feel like we’re in the Scooby gang, what with finding out Steve is Wodrid? How creepy is that? The enemy, right under our noses.”
Fate shuddered. “I’m trying not to think about it too much.” She glanced at the low ceiling and started unbuckling her aeronaut pack. “Doesn’t look like we’ll be doing any flying down here.”
“Agreed.” Jessie removed her pack and set it down next to Fate’s.
Fate gestured for Jessie to follow as she made her way over to the only opening leading out of the small chamber. They entered a curved closed-in corridor, which took a sharp turn into another curved corridor. Each turn they took, seemed to take them in the opposite direction they were heading. The zig-zagging course seemed all too familiar.
When they came to their second dead end, Fate stopped. “We’re inside a maze.”
“That’s what I was afraid was happening.” Jessie wiped the sweat from her brow. She looked close to panicking. “These walls are suffocating. Do you realize we might never find our way out? I’ve heard of people getting lost in corn mazes. It’s awful. Dehydration sets in, then there’s headaches and heatstroke. People die of that, you know.”
“Since there’s no sun beating down on us, I think we can strike death by heatstroke off the list,” Fate assured her. “Wodrid’s what we need to be worried about. He cou
ld be waiting around the next corner for all we know.”
Jessie’s eyes grew wide with fright. “We should probably whisper.”
“Exactly,” Fate whispered back. “Just stay calm and follow me. I’m ninety-nine percent sure this is the exact same maze pattern as the one upstairs.”
“Do you remember it well enough to get us out of here?”
“Sheesh, what do you think?” Fate gave her a dismissive wave.
Jessie latched onto the vague answer like she’d been thrown a life raft, when in fact Fate had no clue whether to turn left or right at the end of the corridor. It was a complete toss of the coin. She decided to take a quick left so Jessie wouldn’t notice any hesitation.
After a good while of weaving through the maze aimlessly, Fate slowed down when she thought she heard a distant high-pitched scream from Gerdie. Signaling to Jessie for complete silence, Fate edged along the wall to the very end and peered around the corner.
They’d finally come to the end of the maze, which opened into a domed room. Countless ancient scrolls filled the shelves lining the curved walls. In the very center, growing out of the cracked stone floor was a tree, beautiful and gleaming with a bluish, white light. Each branch was covered in long, hooked thorns and heavily laden with glowing white blossoms. An invisible breeze tossed the limbs, scattering luminous clouds of pollen and petals into the air.
“That must be the Whitethorn Tree,” Jessie whispered in awe.
Fate started to nod, but froze in place when her gaze landed on a limp form at the base of the tree. It was Finn. His arms were extended over his head, his wrists bound by a rope and bloody from being tied to the thorny branches. His head hung to one side. He wasn’t moving.
Love surged through her, clouding all reason.
Fate lunged forward, but Jessie grabbed her by the arm and yanked her back behind the wall. “You can’t go charging in there. It’s not safe. We need to go in slow and strategic.”
Nerves and icy fear collided as Fate fought the urge to run to Finn. This was the first time she’d seen him since they’d been torn apart. The memories of him and his astonishing strength hammered through her body. She couldn’t begin to imagine the fight Finn must have given Wodrid to bring him to this broken and bloody state. Her heart withered to see him this way. Pressing her hand to her chest, she tried to force the unbearable ache away.
Jessie stopped when she saw Fate’s tears. “Get a grip. You’ll be useless to him if you lose it now.”
Drawing in a shaky breath, Fate rubbed at her tears and nodded.
Jessie edged toward the opening and peeked around the corner. She inched back and turned to Fate. “I don’t see any sign of Wodrid or his girlfriend, but I saw Gerdie. She’s on the opposite end of the room, tied and gagged. She saw me and shook her head. You know what that means, right?”
Fate stared at her, unable to think past Finn’s distressing condition.
“It’s a trap,” Jessie hissed. “We’ve seen it a thousand different times–the classic scene from every movie, where the kidnapped victim is trying to warn the rescuer with a shake of the head. I say we leave and bring back reinforcements.”
“Leave them behind?” Fate whispered. How could she do that when she was this close to Finn? She had to go to him. She literally ached with the need. Every part of her being reached out to him. Nothing in this universe could make her leave him now. Anger cut through the fog, clearing her head like nothing else could. “No way. We’re not leaving here without them. We all go, or none of us go.”
Jessie nodded. “That’s what I like to hear. Welcome back. So what’s the plan?”
Fate examined her laser gun and checked the fuel gauge. “We go in and empty everything we’ve got into Wodrid before he can say, ‘What the…?’“
“Not exactly a plan, but I’m all there for improvising.” Jessie clicked the Dragon Eye gear down over her eye. “I’m ready when you are.”
Taking the lead, Fate turned the corner, willing herself to breathe steadily and take control of her racing heartbeat. Setting all fear aside, she focused her energy on the task at hand, the way she’d been trained by the most skilled knights of Beldereth. It was time to reclaim her knighthood and be the warrior she once was. So what if she didn’t have wind and lightning coursing through her veins anymore and could no longer break bones with a war cry. She was strong in other ways, and this was a battle she had to win, even if she had to fight to the death.
47
Vermis Phobia
FATE DIDN’T DARE LOOK at Finn as she stole past the tree and fixed her gaze on the other side of the room. Her heart screamed at her to stop and go to him. The memory of everything they’d shared flowed through her veins like an intoxicating drug. In the same way an addict craves the next high, she fought the weakness with everything she had and used it to embolden her movements forward. She needed to believe destiny was at work here. It didn’t matter that forces had thrown every obstacle in the universe at them. She and Finn were meant to be together.
Just not this very second.
A few more steps, and she locked eyes with Gerdie, where she sat with her back to the wall, her wrists and ankles bound. She looked tiny and vulnerable. Gerdie’s eyes widened when she saw her, then looked the other way, letting Fate know the direction of her captors.
Signaling to Jessie, Fate directed her to go around the other side of the tree. She slowed down when she saw the alcove Gerdie was staring at, every muscle coiled as she aimed her gun into its shadowy center.
Wodrid suddenly burst forth. An aura of electricity crackled around him. Crimson bolts lashed from his upturned palms as he stormed toward her.
Fate squeezed the trigger, blasting a lethal beam into Wodrid’s center. The ray’s crimson light scattered into harmless particles across his protective shield of energy. She didn’t let that stop her. She charged foward, closing the distance, strengthening the beam’s intensity until the laser pierced his shield and scorched his shoulder.
Wodrid staggered, glancing down at his wound. With an angry snarl, he shot her a scowl and hurled a fireball, knocking the laser gun from her gloved hand.
Without skipping a beat, Fate drew her sword and stormed toward him. She sliced through the next fireball, feeling the heat against her face as flames glanced off the blade.
Catching the briefest flicker of fear on Wodrid’s face, Fate fell into a run with her sword held high.
Raising his staff horizontal to the floor, Wodrid conjured a thick green fog, which gathered and fell down around him. Forms congealed within the swirling mist, shapes that slithered behind the hazy veil. He gave her a smile that made her slow down. “Vermis phobia.” His shoulders shook with laughter and she wondered what was so funny.
A slimy feeler poked through the mist, and then another and another. The dark fleshy color of them stopped Fate in her tracks as her spine tingled with a deep-seated fear. Her knees went weak with terror as the creatures spilled from the fog and she recognized what they were.
Giant earthworms as big as pythons, but so much more repulsive.
Snakes, she could handle. This was a whole new level of horror. She’d never recovered from her fear of worms, not since a terrifying encounter in the third grade.
Fate dropped her sword arm, unable to move.
Wodrid stopped laughing. “Oh, Fate, I must admit it’s been entertaining watching you all these years. Life in that pitiful world you were born in was becoming a real bore, until I finally tracked down you–the last living descendent of the Inkwell line. You’re a magnet for extraordinary events! And here I thought magic was weak in a society obsessed with money, celebrities and looks.”
Fate took her eyes off the worms for a split second to glance at him in shock.
Wodrid smiled at her reaction. “For a while there, I was afraid I’d become irreversibly infected by your sickening pop culture. But it turns out such inculcations can come in quite handy. All the nauseating vocabulary and backwards thinking I
aborbed made it easy for me to meld into shadowing you while I waited for you to find your way into the Keep.”
Fate’s mind raced as she tried to remember a feeling of being stalked. But nothing stood out.
Tilting his head, Wodrid studied her with mock sad lines creasing his brow. “Don’t strain yourself, Fate. You never knew I was in the background watching and listening…learning everything I could about you, because you never noticed me. I always appeared as someone far too ordinary for your taste. That is until I stepped forward as Steve. I suppose that’s because I was playing one of your adoring fans and–”
Jessie drew in behind Wodrid and shot him.
He’d let his guard down too long. The blow knocked him to the floor, but he rolled over, blasting Jessie with a fireball. She dodged the flames, recovering swiftly with a kill shot to the chest. Wodrid slumped onto his back.
Jessie raced over, slammed her boot over his throat and aimed her laser gun at his head in case he could still move. She looked at Fate. “Don’t just stand there. Untie Gerdie!”
Shock and terror locked Fate in place. Forcing her gaze from Wodrid’s still form, she looked down. The worms squirmed toward her, lifting their pointed snouts, pushing the sphincter of their soft, moist mouths up through the tips. Sweat slicked down her back. Her stomach lurched with bouts of nausea. Bile rose in her throat.
“Fate, they’re just worms–humongous ones–but they can’t hurt you. They don’t even have teeth!”
All Fate could do was shake her head. Jessie didn’t understand. The hugeness of the worms only magnified what hideous, gelatinous tubes of gore they were. Jessie also didn’t know that when she’d been inside the Book of Fables, Mugloth had trapped her deep inside the earth, where thousands of worms had squirmed all over her. Chills prickled over her skin as she relived the experience.
Fate's Keep (Fate's Journey Book 2) Page 36
