by C. A. Gray
Then the photo suddenly burst into panoramic, and Peter found himself in broad daylight, standing on top of some sort of flat-topped, manmade hill. Most of the top was grassy, but the steps leading down to ground level were made of ancient, crumbling stone. It looked like they were on the site of some sort of ancient Aztec ruins. In the distance, he could see several more platforms just like it rising from the earth, and there were brown-faced children nearby who had stopped to stare at him. Their parents weren’t far behind, and a few looked at him and Kane with expressions of confusion or mild curiosity, but most ignored them.
“Why aren’t they surprised to see us?” Peter whispered to Kane.
“Why would they be? There are tourists everywhere.”
“We just appeared out of thin air!” Peter hissed back.
“Doesn’t look like they noticed to me,” Kane shrugged. “Anyway, if any of them did, their brains have probably already processed the event and explained it away by now. People only see what they expect to see.”
“Yeah, you said that,” said Peter uncertainly. A teenage girl nearby still gazed at him curiously. He tried to smile back, wondering how he and Kane were going to get away from all of these people in order to do what they had to do. As he looked at her, though, he vaguely registered that although she was in shorts and a t-shirt, she wore a long, thin mink around her shoulders like a scarf. Then the mink began to move. It slithered up to her ear, at which point Peter could see its head and its beady eyes staring directly at him. It whispered something in the girl’s ear, after which she turned away and never looked at Peter or Kane again. Peter was startled – it was the first time he had seen one of the penumbra interact with a human. As he glanced around, he realized that Lily had been right – every single person was accompanied by one of the penumbra. They all took different forms, and some seemed to merge with their human hosts while others were several feet away... but they all had one.
“See that? She just forgot about you,” Kane said, and then he repeated, “People see what they expect to see. If any information doesn’t fit into their world view, they just discard it. With a little help, of course.” He grinned. “I’m sure that’s what happened to the Jeffersons’ driver. That’s why the penumbra left him alone.” The fact that Kane was capable of grinning under the circumstances made Peter want to punch him again.
Peter’s eyes darted anxiously in the distance, but there were people as far as the eye could see. Beyond the pyramids was the car park, but that, too, was filled with people. Several miles in the distance, the grassy area seemed to be deserted, but considering they were on foot and (as Kane had pointed out) Peter was winded by a thirty-second sprint, this was far from encouraging.
“How are we gonna get away from all these people?”
“We don’t have to,” said Kane. “They won’t be in any danger. Trust me.”
Peter snorted involuntarily, and Kane correctly interpreted the noise.
“Or don’t,” Kane shrugged. “If we have to get all the way out there, though, we’ll waste a lot of time. Up to you.”
Peter realized Kane was right. In this particular case, he would have to trust him.
“When you’re ready,” said Kane.
Peter hesitated. “I have weapons,” he said, “underneath.” He lifted the legs of his jeans just high enough that the sun caught a flash of metal. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to tell Kane this now in case he was incapacitated and couldn’t tell him later, or because he was stalling.
“Any idea how to use them?”
Peter winced. “Not a clue.”
“Well, that’s helpful, isn’t it?” Kane said with another grin.
“I never claimed to be a fighter,” said Peter defensively. “You know how to use them, though, and so does my dad, right?”
“Well, if you brought one for me, then give it here,” said Kane, walking towards Peter and extending a hand.
Peter hesitated again, though he wasn’t entirely sure why. I brought Kane along because I need the help, and because he knows how to fight, didn’t I? Reluctantly he un-strapped one of the machetes from his right shin and handed it to Kane, who took it and strapped it to his left arm. As he pulled back his sleeves, Peter could also see the glint of metal underneath Kane’s clothes.
“You’re armed too!”
“Of course I’m armed. I told you I was waiting for you, didn’t I? Do you think I’d walk into the Fortress unprepared?”
“Well, give it back, then. You have enough weapons already,” said Peter, feeling vulnerable all of a sudden. A few of the tourists nearby were very obviously trying not to stare, and parents pulled their children back by their collars to keep them from venturing too near Peter and Kane.
Kane pointed to his left arm. “This, in your hands, is a liability. If you tried to use it, the penumbra would take it from you in about a second, and in the next second, they’d use it to slit your throat before you even knew what happened. You get me?”
Peter wasn’t sure if he was more insulted or disturbed by the image. “Yeah, I get you,” he said, shaken.
“You give the other one to Bruce the second you get a chance, and don’t let the penumbra know you have it before then.”
“Fine!” he snapped defensively. “You ready or what?”
Kane flashed him the same infuriating grin, but with a funny look in his eyes. “You have no idea.”
“All right then,” said Peter, steadying himself with a deep breath, and looked one last time at the world as he knew it. He consciously slowed his breathing, but his heart rate refused to cooperate. Then he opened his mouth and shouted.
“SARGON!”
For a split second, Peter thought it hadn’t worked. The tourists turned to stare at him, and their penumbra looked alarmed. They abandoned their humans and moved toward Peter, as if they were trying to see if he’d really said what they thought he’d said.
Then it happened.
Peter thought he saw a ripple in the air beside and around him – and suddenly they were surrounded, so densely that in spite of the transparency of the creatures, he could not even make out the ruins on which he had been standing moments before. He and Kane instinctively retreated so that they stood back to back. The creature nearest him was enormous and gnarled like a tree, and it stood beside a leering face with dripping yellow fangs and hollow eyes, through which a skeletal hand protruded from robes of shadow, and hair of flame danced menacingly on the head of a siren beside it.
“Which one is him?” Peter managed to hiss to Kane.
“None of them,” Kane replied, sounding tense now. “He has no body.”
“What?” Peter demanded. “But I called his name –”
There was a sound somewhere between a hiss and a cough, and Peter realized halfway through the sentence that it was forming words – the gnarled tree-creature was speaking.
“You called for Lord Sargon, and on Lord Sargon’s behalf we come,” it said.
“Why didn’t he come on his own behalf? I want to see him!” Peter demanded.
“He’s banned from our world, remember?” said Kane.
“He’s banned from possessing humans, but he’s still one of them –” Peter began.
“It’s him!” cried the hag with yellow fangs. “Peter Stewart!”
The hag moved closer. Once satisfied with his identity, she snarled, “Kill him.”
“No! You know our orders,” hissed the tree-creature. “He belongs to Lord Sargon.”
“He has my father,” Peter said, his voice growing more solid. “I want to make an exchange. My life for his.”
The hag gestured with its head in Kane’s direction. “What’s he doing here?”
Peter swallowed. “He’s here to make sure my father and my friend get out alive.”
The entire company of them burst out laughing at this. “But of course, but of course!” said the siren when she had regained control of herself, still highly amused. She pushed to the front of the circle a
nd reached one arm towards Peter. He recoiled but she still managed to grab hold of him. Without a moment’s hesitation, Kane fastened his fingers on the siren’s opposite forearm.
“Why… can I feel you?” Peter asked, but even as he said it, he could see the answer. From the moment her fingers made contact with his flesh, he saw the scenery change, but not with the jolt of arrival, as happened when traveling by wormhole. Rather, the meadow and the ruins seemed to dissolve, and he found the landscape rearranging itself as if by pixilation on a computer screen. Suddenly he was standing on a bank beside cool, still water. Peter wasn’t sure how he knew the water was cool, but if motion was the essence of heat, then this had to be the coldest water on earth.
Of course – we’re not on earth.
“Welcome,” said the siren exultantly, “to Avalon.”
Chapter 27
“This is the center passageway, isn’t it?” said Cole once they had finished checking the adjacent right and left hallways. “Which way goes back to where we left Pete?”
“This way,” said Lily, taking his shoulders and rotating him one hundred eighty degrees, once she had determined by groping which side of him was the front. “Think we should go after him? What’s taking him so long?”
“I’m sure he’s just still looking,” said Cole confidently. “He’ll be here in a few minutes. He said he’d call if he found something, and Pete never lies.”
“If he never lies, what was that bit he told your mum about taking you to tell Isdemus what you saw?”
She couldn’t see him in the darkness, but Lily could almost hear Cole’s face fall. “Oh.” He was silent for a minute. “I didn’t think about that.”
After a pause, Lily said slowly, “You don’t think... he didn’t know where the Commuter Station was before we started, did he?”
“How could he?” Cole countered. “He’s only been down here once before, and we were with him.”
“Yeah, but we were far behind him and Kane the first time. We couldn’t hear everything they said.” When Cole didn’t answer, she added, getting angry, “Do you think he intentionally sent us the wrong way so he could go on alone?”
“Why would he do that?” said Cole, sounding stung.
“To get rid of us! Isdemus said that Peter is the only one who can find the Fata Morgana, and Peter is the one the Shadow Lord wants – not his dad, not Brock, not any of us!”
“Why would he want to get rid of us?” Cole demanded, sounding angry now. “He needs us if he’s going to have any chance at all!”
“To protect us,” said Lily, gritting her teeth, and swore. “That’s exactly what I was afraid he would do. That arrogant little... I never should have trusted him!”
“It’s suicide to go alone!” Cole cried.
“It’s suicide either way. He said he didn’t expect to come back, but if he ever does come back, I’ll kill him myself!” She paced for a minute in the darkness, and then suddenly her voice took on a note of determination. “We have to go after him.” Without waiting for a reply, she flattened Cole against the wall so she could squeeze by him, (”Ow, geez! Careful!” he snapped), and then reached back and groped for Cole’s hand in the dark. When she found it, her fingers locked on like a vise. She dragged him forward across the main hall and into the corridor where Peter had disappeared, groping all the way until they came to the first door. She pulled it open, and they both blinked for several seconds before they registered the fact that it was the Armory.
“Whoa!” Cole cried. “Look at this!” He reached out to grab the first weapon he could reach, which was the hilt of a gilded broadsword, easily weighing thirty pounds.
Lily gasped. “Give me that!” she said, and tried to wrench it from him.
“Hey! Get your own!” Cole protested, and tried to pull it away, but it was too heavy to move quickly.
Lily frowned. “Hmm. Too bulky. This oughtta do,” she said, and grabbed a samurai sword and its sheath, which she slung across her body. “Come on.”
“Wait, I don’t know what to pick!” Cole protested, still holding the broadsword and looking overwhelmed by the other choices.
“We can come back here later, but right now we have to stop Peter from leaving the castle. Without him, you and I won’t know where to go anyway, so it won’t matter if you’re armed or not!” Lily rounded towards the door on her heel and tossed her brown curls over her shoulder as she glared at Cole. “Are you coming?”
Cole resentfully put the broadsword back where he found it and followed her into the hall. “Fine,” he muttered, but grabbed a small dagger and its holster as he went.
The next door they came to was the Commuter Station. It was empty.
“Is it possible he missed this door?” said Cole doubtfully.
“It’s only the next one,” Lily muttered angrily. “What do you think he did, went all the way to the end and worked his way backwards?”
Just then, there was a crack, and an enormous nimbus appeared, his muscular form glowing like that of a prototypical Greek god. When he saw Lily and Cole, he jumped.and then said sharply, “How did you get in here undetected?” Before they could answer, he added, “Where’s Peter? Is he with you?”
“No,” they both said at once, and then before they could say more, the nimbus’s eyes moved toward the photo of the flat-topped pyramid. His face fell.
“What is it?” Lily demanded.
“There is… in the superstrings... lingering evidence of recent transport,” the nimbus said finally.
“Evidence? What kind of evidence?” Lily demanded.
The creature took a deep breath and said, “You know how the penumbra pinpointed your location the night of the accident, from the disturbance in the superstrings?”
Cole and Lily stared at him blankly, and Cole said for both of them, “We have no idea what you just said.”
“In the outside world, everything goes according to expected laws, so when one disturbance occurs, every creature outside your universe knows about it right away. In Carlion, though, that happens all the time. So the nimbi… well, we basically ignore it.” He winced. “But Isdemus just sent me here to keep guard, and it looks like I’m too late. The traces are still here, like… like a ripple effect.”
“Are the ripples coming from that picture?” Cole asked anxiously, pointing at the photo of the ruins. “Can we go after him? What are we waiting for?”
“If it was Peter, I’m certain he is already gone,” said the creature. “Wait here –” And he disappeared with another crack.
“Wait here?” said Cole indignantly. “Yeah, right, I’m waiting here!” He began to march toward the photo, but Lily grabbed his collar to stop him.
“He’s coming right back,” she said, “don’t be thick!”
Before Cole could retort, the dazzling creature reappeared with another crack, his flawlessly chiseled face crestfallen.
“What? What?” Lily and Cole both demanded at once.
“There is no one there,” the nimbus reported, “but there are many people near the site of the disturbance who do not have penumbra.”
Lily looked shocked, but Cole said quickly, “So what does that mean?”
“That’s unheard of,” said Lily, “unless they’re all Seers –”
“They can’t be, they did not notice me,” said the nimbus. “I can only think of one other explanation…”
“If Peter was there and they knew who he was, they’d be much more interested in him than in their hosts,” Lily finished, her expression full of dread. She recovered herself and tried to compensate by saying bossily, “That’s it, then. We have to go after him, but someone has to tell Isdemus what happened, don’t they?” Before they could answer, she cried, “Fides Dignus!”
With another crack, the ugly little creature appeared, looking very put out.
“Someone please tell me,” he said, fluttering in the middle of the hall with a scowl on his face, “why I am always the messenger around here? Learn some oth
er names, people!”
“Peter Stewart seems to have disappeared,” said the enormous glowing nimbus.
Fides Dignus stared at him for a moment blankly. Then he looked at Lily, who tried to look resolute but was simultaneously on the verge of tears, and Cole, who looked somewhere between angry and hurt. Then he repeated, just to be clear, “Gone as in…” and he pointed at the photos on the wall.
“It would appear that way,” said the other nimbus fretfully. “I will see if there are any clues to indicate where he is now, but in the meantime, the girl is right, someone has to inform Isdemus…”
“I get it, I get it,” said Fides Dignus, but his scowl had morphed into concern. “I’ll tell him.” He disappeared with another crack.
Cole pointed at the picture of the ruins. “Any idea where that is?”
The nimbus regarded it and said, “Oaxaca.”
“Bless you,” said Cole.
“No, Oaxaca,” said the creature. “It’s a city in Mexico.”
“All right, what are we waiting for?” said Lily, and began to move towards the picture, but the nimbus stepped in front to block her. “What are you doing?” she demanded. “There’s no time to lose!”
“I need to make something clear,” said the nimbus sternly. “You are only children. You are not going to the Fata Morgana. I will only allow you to come with me to try to determine where Peter went, and I’m only doing that much so I can keep an eye on you. Then I will send you back here and call for reinforcements.”
“Let’s not argue right now,” said Cole to Lily under his breath. “We can try to find a loophole later.”
Lily narrowed her eyes at the nimbus, but he moved aside after he’d said his piece, giving her full access to the picture. She set her jaw and walked toward it deliberately. For an instant her body warped like a reflection in a funhouse mirror, and then she was gone.
“All right, my turn,” said Cole bracingly, and walked toward the photo. Then suddenly he appeared on a grassy plain – on top of a hill – or no, on a platform – “Where are we again? Gezundheit?”
