by C. A. Gray
He had to give up his life, but theirs would simply be a waste. Lily’s might be worse than a waste. Isdemus himself had all but acknowledged that the fate of the world rested on her shoulders. If he wasn’t the One, and he was certain he wasn’t, then it had to be Lily.
So, he knew what he had to do.
“All right,” he said, trying to look as defeated as possible.
Lily’s expression flickered for a second, as if she hadn’t quite expected that response. She tried to look resolute.
They were only a few yards from the Great Hall. Peter paused before he entered, arranging his expression in such a way that he would not alarm Mrs. Jefferson.
“Cole,” he said in a very odd voice. Cole looked up anxiously and ran to him.
“Pete! Lily! What did he say? What did you find out?”
“Come on, we’ll tell you,” said Peter in a tone that did not belong to him.
“What?” said Mrs. Jefferson. Her face was still puffy and red, but as she stood and put her hands on her hips, her eyes flashed. “Tell him here! Don’t you dare keep secrets from me. This is my son!”
“No, no secrets, of course,” said Peter quickly, and then he cast a quick glance at Lily, looking for support. “Isdemus… was shocked when we told him where they are, of course. The Watchers will be leaving to try and rescue Brock and my dad any minute now… but Isdemus wanted us to come and get Cole so he could find out what we’ve learned directly from all of us before they go, so that they have as good an idea as possible of what they’re looking for.”
Lily looked at Peter, impressed.
“Oh… oh yes, of course…” said Mrs. Jefferson, sitting down slowly again. “Well, I’d just be in the way. Hurry back?” she said anxiously to Cole, and stifled another sob.
Peter felt a pang of guilt as he looked at her miserable face, but consoled himself that the lie was for a good cause – it was the only way to send both of her sons back to her.
When they were out of earshot, Lily and Peter briefed Cole on what they had overheard in Isdemus’s office. Cole also took it as a given that he and Lily were coming along, and he wore the same expression as Lily – a mask of determination and courage that barely concealed the suppressed fear lurking beneath.
“So what do we have to do next?” Lily said to Peter as bravely as she could.
“Now we go back to the stone wall by the store room.”
“Where the secret library is?” said Cole, confused. “Why?”
“Isdemus said I’m not to leave the castle until Bruce and Brock return.” He purposely left out the other half of that statement. “So if we tried to go out by the main gates, the servants or the nimbi would stop us. If we tried to get to the Commuter Station via the main halls, they’d stop us there, too.”
“But they don’t know that we know about the secret passageways!” Cole finished, his eyes lighting up.
“Exactly. See, I knew we’d be glad we didn’t call one of the nimbi to lead us out,” said Peter grimly. “But we’d better move fast. They’ll be patrolling the Commuter Station in no time, and we don’t even know how to get there from inside the passage. We have no time to lose!”
Chapter 25
Brock could barely see the meager stones below that supported them and kept himself and Bruce from toppling into the deadly water beneath. The soft glow came from all around them, reflecting off the surface of the water below, around, and above, and revealed the fact that all of the penumbra had gone. Brock ventured tentatively forward, careful to step only where there were stones to support him –
“Ow!” said Brock, and fell backwards onto his backside. The sensation he had just received was not exactly painful, though – it was more like a backward thrust. He just couldn’t think of any other exclamation than ‘ow.’
“Yeah, I tried that too,” said Bruce. Brock could only make out Bruce’s outline, but bits of the filtered light above reflected off the lenses of his glasses. “It’s a forcefield.”
Brock rubbed his hip and winced, looking in the direction of Bruce’s voice.
“They’re trying to make sure we don’t escape,” Bruce explained.
“Right,” said Brock. “How big is it?” he asked, meaning the forcefield, not wanting to have to find out the hard way.
“Oh, you know. We’re pretty much in a cage,” said Bruce. He attempted to sound casual, but his voice was tight.
Brock breathed once, in and out. “What is this place?”
“It’s called the Fata Morgana,” said Bruce. “I thought it was just a legend until… yesterday? The day before? I have no idea how long I’ve been here.”
“I know it’s called that, but what is it?”
“You want my theory?” said Bruce. “That’s all it is of course…”
“Yeah. Sure. Anything.”
“All right, then. I think we’re in an alternate dimension. String theory predicts the existence of at least eleven dimensions within our universe, but aside from the four that we live in most of the time –”
“Four?” said Brock dully. He was only half listening, letting Bruce’s words wash over him until he said something that might be useful.
“Three dimensional space plus time,” Bruce clarified. “Aside from those, string theory predicts that the other seven are coiled up on themselves, and from the perspective of our world, they are smaller than a grain of sand. William Blake said, ‘Every space smaller than a globule of man’s blood opens into Eternity, of which this vegetable Earth is but a shadow…’”
“That’s great, but how does that help us?” Brock cut in. His temples were throbbing and he rubbed them with the pads of his fingers.
Bruce shrugged, though Brock couldn’t see him. “I don’t think it does. You just asked what this place is, and I told you what I thought. It’s the best I’ve been able to work out. It isn’t as if I’ve had anything else to do.”
They were silent for a long moment. Brock pulled his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them. It wasn’t cold, but he felt chilled anyway.
“So, just curious,” said Bruce. “What did they kidnap you for? Assuming you know.”
Brock looked up, and then said slowly, as if he were talking to himself, “That’s right. I guess you don’t know what happened.”
“I have a theory,” said Bruce. “Do you want to –”
“No, this one I can tell you,” said Brock. “There was a car accident. Peter, Cole, and this new girl Lily were in my family’s car –”
“What?” said Bruce, suddenly alert. “Is Peter –”
“We’re all fine,” said Brock quickly, and then added, somewhat ironically as he considered his present situation, “Well, relatively speaking. Our driver Thomas hit this guy Kane’s car –”
“Kane?” Bruce repeated, his jaw dropping. “Peter – met Kane?”
“Yeah, and he’s a real piece of work,” Brock muttered. “His car flipped and almost killed us, but it froze in mid-air and reversed –”
Bruce gaped at him, and then started laughing incredulously. “Reversed!” he repeated. “It reversed?”
“Yeah. Next thing we knew, the penumbra showed up and attacked us. Kane fought them off, and some of the nimbi came to help –”
“So the penumbra took physical form then?” Bruce demanded. “They had bodies?”
“Yeah, they had bodies,” said Brock impatiently, annoyed with the interruptions. “We warped to the castle after that –”
“From the Grandfather Tree?”
“Yeah, we were right next to it when the accident happened…”
“Convenient,” said Bruce, frowning.
“And we’ve been in Carlion ever since. Well, the others have. I left last night… er, tonight…” Brock suddenly realized that he had no sense of time either. “Recently,” he said finally.
“So Peter and the others are still in Carlion, then?” Bruce demanded.
“Far as I know.”
Bruce closed his eyes, as
if trying to process. “I figured it was something like this, but I never imagined… he reversed it!” Then he shook his head and said, “Kane!”
Brock waited for Bruce to share his thoughts, but when he didn’t, he said finally, “You wanna fill me in over here?”
Bruce thought for a minute. “How much do you know about Peter?”
Brock looked away. “He’s… well, he’s a science nerd, and…” He stopped. He’d almost said that he was a social outcast, but then remembered he was talking to Peter’s dad. “I haven’t been very nice to him,” Brock said finally.
“Oh. Well, I’m sure you meant well,” Bruce said absently. “But that wasn’t what I –”
“No, I didn’t mean well,” Brock interrupted stubbornly. “I didn’t mean well at all. I was mean to him on purpose.”
Bruce stared at Brock irritably at first, but then softened. “All right,” he said, with a reluctant sigh. “Why were you mean to Peter on purpose, then?”
It took Brock a long time to answer. “I’m not really sure,” he said at last. “It just seemed like the thing to do.”
“Because you were afraid of what your friends would think?”
“I guess,” Brock sighed. “Well… not even them so much. I don’t know.”
“You were afraid of what your dad would think,” Bruce finished.
Brock looked up at him, surprised, and saw only the reflection of his glasses from the filtered light above. “How do you –”
“Peter and Cole are best friends,” Bruce pointed out, and then he shrugged. “I hear things.”
Brock paused even longer at this, and then continued in a very small voice, “You know, I don’t even like football? I always dread going to practice. It’s not so bad once I’m there, but every time I make a good play I feel like people expect me to do it again, like the stakes are that much higher the next time. It’s worse if my dad is watching, because I know whatever I do, it’s not going to be good enough. He’ll always find fault with something. I could win Man of the Match every game and get a football scholarship to uni and it wouldn’t matter. He’d still –” He stopped. “I didn’t even like Celeste.”
Bruce looked confused by this train of thought. “Who?”
“My last girlfriend. I thought Peter would have told you about her – it was obvious he fancied her. Even she knew it,” said Brock. “She’s really shallow and kind of mean, but she’s the prettiest girl in school. I don’t even know why we broke up, but when we did I was… relieved.”
“So you only dated her because she was the prettiest girl in school?”
“No,” said Brock. A few seconds later, though, he said, “Well, I don’t know. Maybe.”
Bruce thought for a minute and then said, “So let me ask you this. What in the world were you doing in the car with Peter, Cole, and Lily that night?”
Brock smiled sardonically, even though Bruce couldn’t see it. “Lily and I were on a date, and Peter and Cole crashed it.”
In spite of himself, Bruce smiled in amusement. “You were on a date with Lily Portman?”
“Yeah, but only because of a dare,” Brock blurted. He almost couldn’t stop himself, like he wanted to make himself sound as awful as possible as some sort of penance. “It all seems so stupid now. If it hadn’t been for that, none of them would have been in my car that night, and none of this would have happened!”
“No, if it hadn’t been for Kane, none of this would have happened,” said Bruce, and looked away. “I don’t know how he did it, but I’m sure he did.”
“So you think he wanted us to hit him?”
“Isdemus warned me that Kane was getting dangerously obsessed with Peter once he’d read the prophecies,” said Bruce, and then added, “You know Isdemus by now, I take it?”
“Yeah,” said Brock, his tone unreadable. He wasn’t sure how he felt about Isdemus. He knew his opinion, once formed, would be very strong, but he couldn’t yet decide if it would be positive or negative.
“Then you know why the penumbra showed up to attack you that night,” said Bruce. “You know who we believe Peter to be.”
“Yeah,” said Brock again. “Peter told us the legends that he said you told him when he was little, and he and Isdemus stayed up talking that first night. Peter told us what Isdemus had said at breakfast the next morning.”
Bruce blinked at him with an expression that seemed almost envious. “What did Peter say Isdemus told him?”
“Something about how he was the Child of the Prophecy.” Brock hadn’t meant to say it with such derision, but it came out that way. Bruce didn’t seem to notice.
“Is that all?” he said sharply.
Brock looked at him then, genuinely surprised. “Isn’t that enough?”
Bruce breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes. Yes, of course it is.”
“Anyway, what about Kane?” said Brock. “Lily thinks he’s jealous of Peter, like he wants to be this Child of the Prophecy, or thinks he is, or something like that. Then the stable kid Eustace said that there were actually three people that the prophecy could refer to, or maybe more.”
“Yes,” said Bruce, swallowing hard. “There are two other possibilities that we know of, but we kept a good watch on one of them. The Watchers lost track of the other one a couple generations ago. They just found her a few days before the accident. Well, I found her actually. It’s Lily.”
“What?” Brock cried.
“I don’t really think it’s her,” Bruce went on, “but technically she does fit the prophecy. Anyway, Isdemus told me he was concerned that Kane might test Peter’s abilities at some point, but none of us ever dreamed it would be so… dramatic.”
“So you think Peter’s the Child of the Prophecy too. That he’s supposed to stop this Shadow Lord from taking over the world?”
“Well,” he said, and changed the subject. “Perhaps they didn’t tell you – I’m one of the Watchers. I’ve been in on the whole thing from the beginning.”
“Huh,” said Brock. “You are Peter’s real dad, though, right?”
“Of course,” said Bruce, surprised by the question. “I’m in the line of the king, too, but the prophecy doesn’t fit me.”
“So do you think it’s Peter or not?”
They were silent again for a long moment, and Bruce shifted his weight uncomfortably from one hip to the other, never taking his gaze off the deadly water below. “I think that’s a conversation I should have with Peter before I have it with anyone else,” he said finally.
“So that’s a no, then,” said Brock. “You said you don’t think it’s Lily either. I guess you think it’s that third guy you mentioned?” He tentatively stretched out one of his legs to see if he’d hit the forcefield before he could extend it fully. When he didn’t, he stretched the other one out too. “All these creatures of the underworld think it’s Peter, though.”
“Apparently,” Bruce gave a short laugh.
Brock chuckled bleakly too. “They think Peter Stewart, the outcast science nerd, is supposed to save the world... and I’m being used as bait against him.”
“Peter doesn’t know where we are or how to get here, though,” Bruce said anxiously. “Right?”
“No idea,” said Brock.
“My guess is the penumbra are going to do everything they can to make sure he finds out, though,” said Bruce with a shudder. Then he rebounded, “As long as he stays in Carlion, though, they can’t get to him to tell him! And Isdemus won’t let him leave. He’d never let him put himself at risk. He’d –” He stopped.
Brock could barely see Bruce’s face, but enough of the outside light filtered in that he could tell he wore a very odd expression, like he’d been about to say ‘he’d let us die first.’
Then Bruce said suddenly, “You have a great deal going for you. You know that, right? You have a lot you should feel proud of.”
Brock snorted. “Right,” he said scathingly. “You’re going to say because I’m popular, and good looking, and good at
sports, and everybody wants to either be like me or date me. But none of that stuff matters if we die here, does it?”
Bruce looked surprised, and Brock was rather surprised at himself, too. He’d never said any of that out loud before.
“None of those things have anything to do with your value, Brock,” said Bruce, as if that were obvious. “They’re all very nice of course, but those are just words that describe you. They’re not who you are. If those words didn’t apply anymore, you would still be you.”
“I’d still be a complete prat, you mean.”
In spite of himself, a smile tugged at the corners of Bruce’s mouth. “Well, you don’t have to be a complete prat if you don’t want to be.”
Brock didn’t bother to say aloud what they were both thinking – that it was too late.
A long while later, Bruce ventured, “Have you figured out your gift yet?”
Brock scowled. Bruce’s words still sinking in, and for some reason he couldn’t explain, they made him angry, as if Bruce had jabbed his thumb into a wound. “My what?”
“The element you can control with the Ancient Tongue. It takes most people a little while in Carlion to figure it out, and I know you just got there and probably weren’t all that open then. If we’re going to die here anyway, though, you should at least figure it out before we do.” He stopped and said, “That was supposed to sound a lot more comforting than it did.”
Brock surprised himself by laughing – a real, genuine laugh. “Sure, whatever, but I don’t know how much we can do inside this little bubble…”
“Well, we have three of the elements here,” said Bruce, “so if it’s one of those…” He pointed in turn. “Stone, water, and air. Then it could be something like my gift: I can spontaneously create particles, and you don’t need anything to be present already for that, although I can only create photons by themselves, since those don’t violate any laws of thermodynamics. If I create any particles with actual mass, I have to create their antiparticles too, and then they just annihilate with each other and I’m back to square one.” He stopped and scratched his head. “Then there’s fire, which requires the presence of oxygen, but we’ve got that. I think,” he added, frowning and looking around, as if inspecting the air. “So come on, give it a go…”
