Emma reached over and whispered something in Milo’s ear, catching him off-guard.
“I heard you like Lily. You should ask her to sit by the pond with you. That’s what people do here.”
Milo’s face heated up in embarrassment.
“She’s two years older than me,” he said, frowning. “Besides, I don’t like her.”
Now it was Emma’s turn to frown. “Why not? What did she do to you?”
“Nothing, I just—never mind.” He crossed his arms and stared moodily at the fire crystals. How he wished he could cast a fireball again—and with everyone watching him this time, especially Lily. That would show them he wasn’t just some nervous little kid.
Barrel cleared his throat. “Shall we?”
“We shall,” Lily said, standing. She looked over the group. “OK, everyone, we have a special treat for you this evening.”
She nodded at Barrel, who stood up with a light sigh of effort. He glanced at something in the darkened corner.
“It’s too heavy for me.”
Gunner sprang to his feet. “It’s OK, Baraltimus, sir. I’ll get it.”
“Thank you, Gunner.” Barrel let out a petite sigh. “I’ve become an old man already.”
“How old are you, anyway?” Owen said, gazing at a sharp-looking arrow he’d pulled out of a duffel bag. “I heard you’re almost a hundred.”
“Humankin and their rumors.” Barrel shook his head. He turned and watched Gunner lug over a big, plastic tank carrying a dark liquid that sloshed inside.
“Careful,” Barrel said. “It’s carbonated. We don’t want it to go pop.”
He demonstrated with an outward burst of his white hands.
“It’s heavy,” Gunner said. “What is it?”
Barrel looked over the group.
“Those of the human realm have their Coca-Cola.” He glanced at Milo and Emma. “I call this Bara-cola. The one and only, mixed by yours truly. Just don’t drink too much or it’ll make you feel loopy. Oh, and I had a little trouble with the marshmallows.”
“A little trouble?” Lily said.
“They came out the size of basketballs.”
“Oh.”
“But I brought them anyway.”
Emma clapped. “Yay!”
Barrel motioned for Owen to slide a box over from the corner of the room. Owen sighed and got up, then sighed again as he pushed. As per Barrel’s instructions, he reached in and pulled out two marshmallows that required both arms to lift. They really were the size of basketballs. Milo’s mouth watered at the sight of them.
Owen gave one of the marshmallows to Emma and kept the other for himself and Gunner. Soon, they were all tearing away fluffy, sticky white chunks and stuffing their mouths. Meanwhile, Barrel instructed Gunner on how to connect the hose and nozzle they would use to pour the Bara-cola.
Emma asked Barrel, “How did you get all this stuff up here, anyway?” She sucked marshmallow off her fingertips. “Like that huge tank of soda.”
“Sevarin,” Barrel said.
“Where is he?”
Barrel glanced over at Lily, who quickly looked away.
“What?” Emma said.
Barrel shrugged. “He hasn’t been feeling—how should I say this?—appreciated these days. Don’t worry, it has nothing to do with you.”
“He’s sensitive,” Lily said. “Also, a bit melodramatic.”
“He likes Emma,” Milo said, and grinned at his sister.
She shoved him. “Shut up.”
“See? Now I get to make fun of you.”
Lily looked confused. “What are you two talking about?”
“Oh, nothing,” Emma said. “It’s just that Milo likes someone in this roo—oof!”
Milo had shoved a chunk of marshmallow into Emma’s mouth.
“That’ll teach you,” he said.
“Foopid.” Emma said, frowning at him as she chewed.
They spent the next twenty minutes sipping a fizzy drink that tasted a bit like cinnamon and sour apples. Emma found it unpleasant and too tingly and tried to set her cup aside without calling attention to it. Milo, on the other hand, was on his third cup by the time everyone else was finishing with their second.
“Whoa,” he said, looking at all the buzzing lightbugs. They were everywhere. “They’re so colorful.”
“You really like the soda, huh?” Barrel said, crossing his arms and peering at him.
“It’s great!” Milo grabbed at the lightbugs. “But I feel—I feel…”
“Your arms must be a little numb right now. Don’t worry. Soon, you’ll feel like you just had the best massage of your life.”
Milo looked into his cup. “Cool.”
The group chatted for a bit when suddenly Owen got up and cleared his throat.
“Barrel isn’t the only one with something to contribute.” He paused and looked around at everybody in an attempt to build suspense. “I’ve got something special for the gang tonight.”
Barrel rubbed his hands together and looked at Milo.
“The comic books,” he said.
“Actually”—Owen cleared his throat with the ahem, ahem of a carnival announcer—“I have a joke for all of you. I know you’ll like this one. A Savant, a Feral, and a Xelionic priest walk into a bar…”
“Oh, that one’s offensive,” Lily said, scowling at him. “Plus it’s not funny. Did you really not bring the comic books?”
“I was just kidding,” he said. “Geez. Can’t you take a joke?”
“Yeah,” Gunner said. “Geez!”
“Anyway, I wanted you all to get some of Barrel’s cola in you before I brought these babies out. They’re brand new and still smell like Ayrtorian plastic. Enjoy.”
Lily clapped excitedly, and soon everyone followed. Gunner, who was still standing over the Barra-cola tank, slipped a backpack off his shoulders and dug around inside. He passed Owen two stacks of neatly packaged comic books. Owen tore them open and started handing them out. A stream of lightbugs swirled all around him, flashing different colors, like a galaxy of red, orange, and yellow stars.
“Pass ’em around, folks,” he said, then swatted at the colors. “Damned lightbugs.”
Milo received one of the comic books and examined the cover. On it was a drawing of a long-limbed man wearing a leather jacket, black jeans, and the sort of black boots a soldier or a mercenary might wear. The man wore chains around his neck and had stringy black hair that fell down around his ears and across his forehead. There was a look on his face—especially in those dark, slitted eyes, the tightly drawn mouth—that seemed to say, Don’t come near me ’cause I’m unpredictable, dangerous…
And there were things attached to the man’s back and shoulders that made him look sort of like a bat. They were the wings of an Acolyte, but instead of feathers they were made from sheets of tough-looking navy-blue fabric held together by metal frames. Artificial wings.
“This is an incredible drawing,” Milo said. “Who prints this comic? And where does it come from?”
Barrel sat on the floor across from him, knees drawn to his chest like he was trying to make himself into a tiny ball. Around him, the other orphans chatted about the latest issue of the comic, which was called The Last of the Champions.
“That’s Paul Heron, one of the Champions of Astros. He’s an Acolyte demigod from D’Aliara who was sent to prison twenty-five years ago by the priest-king of Lustria.”
Emma leaned forward. “Did you say D’Aliara? I’ve heard that name before.” She gazed into the crackling fire. “In a dream.”
“Hmm.” Barrel brought up two fingers and stroked his chin. “I’ve heard about your dreams. They say you have the sight.”
Emma fidgeted and kept her gaze low. She hugged her knees to her chest and shrugged. The other orphans were listening to the conversation.
“I don’t know,” Emma said. “I just have these vivid dreams sometimes.”
They all watched Emma for several seconds before Milo
, sensing his sister’s discomfort, broke the silence among them.
“Is D’Aliara a city?” he asked Barrel.
“Not exactly. It’s a continent, like this one. Right now, we’re on Taradyn, home to most of the Humankin population of Astros. There are four other continents, one for each of the races, though, for obvious reasons, you can find all four races—including Humankin—on each of the continents. This is because couples give birth to offspring of different races all the time. It has to do with the interracial mixing that began several thousand—oomph!”
Lily had nudged Barrel in the side and was now giving him an annoyed look.
“Will you just tell the story already?”
“Yeah,” Owen said. “Enough with the lectures, professor.”
“Hmph.” Barrel crossed his arms over his chest and glared at Lily. “People say Savants are arrogant, and now I see why. A few of us give the rest a bad name.”
She rolled her eyes.
“Anyway, Paul Heron is currently being kept prisoner in Lustria, the capital city of the Kingom of D’Aliara, for breaking practically all of the anti-technology laws first established by the Acolyte Priest-King Amadeyn, father of the current Priest-King Lucern. Paul had his artificial wings made in Theus, the capital city of Ayrtoros and also the most technologically advanced city on the planet. He lost his real wings during a battle.”
“So he’s real?” Milo said, on his knees so he could hear every word. “This Paul Heron guy?”
“That’s right. He’s one of the few demigods left on Astros. Apart from the other Champions—and the two of you, of course.”
Milo sank back into a cross-legged seated position, suddenly embarrassed. The other orphans watched him and Emma with expressions of admiration—and, in Owen’s case, a hint of jealousy.
“Aw, come on,” Owen said. “They’re no different from the rest of us. Just ’cause their parents were Champions doesn’t mean…”
Emma drew in a sharp breath.
“My mom and dad were Champions? Really?”
“Yeah, yeah,” Owen said. “They were the first ones. They recruited Paul Heron, Pris Walksprite, Quaddis Lodge, and Emmanuel, Savant son of Sargos.”
“Hey,” Barrel said. “Have some respect. Maximus is no longer with us.”
Owen’s eyes went wide with embarrassment. His head sank down into his shoulders and he made a gulping sound. “Sorry.”
“I want to hear more about the Champions,” Emma said.
“Who doesn’t?” Barrel cleared his throat, then leaned to his left and said, with a flourish of his pale, baby-bird hand, “The other editions, please.”
Gunner reached back and pulled from the darkness what appeared to be a brown shoebox, plain and worn with use. Duct tape had been used to keep the edges together. He opened it and passed it to Owen, who then passed it to Lily, who smiled down into the box before passing it to Barrel, who grunted at the weight of the box before passing it across to Milo and Emma.
“These are the other editions we’ve been lucky enough to find. Ascher buys them off smugglers. You probably don’t know this, but a lot of literature is banned in the Leonaryx Empire, especially any that praises the Champions or the High Republic of Theus.”
“Why?” Milo said, flipping through one of the editions. Brightly colored warriors fought battles across the pages. It was much like the comic books from back home, except that these seemed brighter, more alive. Even in the low light, the colors appeared to be infused with sparkling energy.
Barrel continued, swatting away a red-and-blue lightbug that flashed like lights on a police cruiser. “The Leonaryx cousins want to keep another revolution from taking place, so they suppress any and all influences that might inspire the people of this continent to think for themselves.” There was disgust in his voice. “So far, they’ve succeeded, and most people don’t complain.”
Barrel went on to describe the other Champions Owen had mentioned.
Pris Walksprite was a female Sargonaut who had once been a member of an elite group of hunters called the Guardians. These sword-wielding warriors were responsible for protecting both Godkin and Humankin from demon-like creatures called Elki. Barrel described them as looking like sleek, hairless dogs—greyhounds, he specified—except that, unlike dogs, they had bone spikes sticking out of their backs along the spine, and red eyes that could see in the dark. They had sharp teeth, of course—rows and rows of them, like sharks—and they could open their mouths wide enough to bite through a human torso and sever it completely from its other half. They were descendants of Cebrons, and it was the duty of the Guardians to hunt them out of existence.
The Guardians were so good at wielding their swords, however, that when the Leonaryx cousins came to power, Kovax came up with the idea of turning them into a secret police force meant to eliminate the rebels. He gave them no choice, of course—it was serve or die.
So Pris turned her back on the emperor and went after her husband instead, Paul Heron, who by this point had already been arrested by the priest-king of Lustria. According to the legends, Paul and Pris had been on the verge of a very difficult divorce because of the amount of time Pris was spending on the hunt. When Paul was arrested, she decided to make things right and go after him. She almost succeeded in breaking him free but ultimately failed after a run-in with one of the emperor’s men, a Berserker named Basher, one of the strongest and most bloodthirsty of his kind.
But Pris Walksprite didn’t die. After the battle, which left her with a ghastly, diagonal facial scar, she was seen limping away toward the mountains, using her sword as a cane. Kovax sent soldiers after her, but she was never seen again.
“Pris Walksprite,” Emma said, studying the brightly colored portraits of the female Sargonaut. Pris was a tall, beautiful woman with the erect posture of a soldier. She wore her yellow-blonde hair pulled back in a tight bun. Her metal breastplate had been shaped to fit the curves of her chest, and around her hips and thighs she wore a skirt made of metal eaves that showed off a pair of long, well-muscled legs. A diagonal red scar had been slashed across her face in all the pictures, making her look even more intimidating.
“Pretty,” Milo said.
“She’s beautiful,” Emma said. “Even with the scar.”
Quaddis Lodge and Emmanuel were the other two Champions. They often traveled together, though both had been missing for so long that no one knew if this was still true.
In the comics, Emmanuel was an average-sized man with coin-shaped sunglasses wearing a cloak that was sometimes light gray and sometimes charcoal black. In many of the drawings, he was depicted as walking calmly next to a wolf with sky-blue fur and patterns on his body resembling red flames. There were chunks of flesh missing from one of the wolf’s ears.
The blue-and-red wolf was Quaddis, a Feral man who had received a fatal wound while in human form but had phased at just the right moment into his wolf form. Barrel explained that all Ferals, when mortally wounded, have the ability to phase into an animal form to cheat death. But they can never phase out of it ever again and must live the rest of their lives as animals with a human mind. Many of these “trapped Ferals” even develop the ability to speak like humans after a while.
As for Emmanuel, Savant son of Sargos, he was a powerful magician and a famous inventor who created something known as a “time dilation engine.” This machine—absolutely brilliant, according to Barrel—could contain vast amounts of energy from splitting the luminether atom, then use that energy to warp the fabric of space-time to create a capsule in which those inside would age while the world outside of them stood still. Because it needs a constant source of luminether, the machine can only work deep underground. Some say that’s where Emmanuel is—hidden beneath the earth, working tirelessly on a way to remove Corgos and Kovax from power.
“I believe he’s closer than we think,” Barrel said.
Owen piped in. “Do you think he’s the magician stalking the ranch?”
“It’s po
ssible. But I’m sure Emmanuel has better things to do with his time. Unless, of course, he’s stalking the ranch because there’s something of great value inside.”
He sat back with a contented smile, joined his hands across his narrow chest, and wagged his eyebrows at Milo.
“The Champions are pretty neat, ey?”
Milo nodded, still admiring the various comic book covers. Owen and Gunner were sharing a sack of dried, salted meat strips, and their chewing was the only sound in the room. Emma and Lily studied one of the books.
“This cola’s putting me to sleep,” Emma said, dipping her blonde head forward.
Milo looked up and caught Lily staring at him. She looked away, a tiny smile turning up a corner of her lips. Milo avoided meeting her eyes, still mystified as to how he was supposed to behave around her. He’d never really learned how to talk to girls. Wasn’t that a skill one acquired in high school?
The subject of girls reminded him of something. He looked at his wrist, but the marks Calista had slashed on his skin had healed long ago. He still couldn’t believe he’d never noticed it before—that his body healed much faster than normal. Also, now that he thought about it, neither he nor Emma had ever been sick.
“Hey,” he said. “Where’s Calista?”
Barrel reached over to Owen and Gunner and motioned for them to give him some jerky. They dropped a few strips into his palm and Barrel, ever the delicate sort, began munching along the very edge of one. When he saw Milo looking at him, he narrowed his eyes at the meat strip and caused it to rise from his fingers and float up to his lips. He bit into it while it was still in the air.
Milo was stunned.
“Calista was too tired to come out tonight,” Barrel said, chewing.
Emma crossed her arms and frowned. “She’s just stuck up. I only ever see her in cat form, which I know she does to avoid talking to people.”
“That’s not true.” Barrel said, and swallowed. “She’s actually quite talkative. She just doesn’t like her human form very much. Oops, I’ve said too much. Please don’t label me a gossip.”
“Is she embarrassed to look like us?” Emma said.
“Not quite. It’s a long story, and a painful one. However, I don’t think she would want us talking about her behind her back.”
Savant (The Luminether Series) Page 16
