by C. W. Trisef
His head down and hands on his hips, Ret glanced over at the Guardian. Neo had his legs crossed, still staring into nothing.
Ret approached him and asked, “Will you at least tell me how to get out of here?”
“You’re a smart guy,” was all Neo said.
After waiting for Neo to say more, Ret bent his head back and rolled his eyes in frustration. “And what does that mean?” His patience was wearing thin.
“It means I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” he explained.
At his wit’s end, Ret exhaled with exasperation and plopped down on the bench next to Neo. He propped his elbow on the narrow armrest and began to massage his forehead with his fingers.
“You know, with all due respect, sir,” said Ret, “you are the most unhelpful Guardian I have ever worked with.”
“Why thank you,” Neo laughed. “I’ll take that as a compliment,”
“Of course, Krypto wasn’t much help either, but that’s because he was already dead,” Ret recalled of the Guardian of the Ore Element.
“Oh, Krypto,” Neo cooed with fondness, “my old friend. Which element was he given?”
“Ore.”
“Perfect fit,” Neo smiled. “That man knew what was truly important in life.” Then a moment later, “Who else have you met so far?”
“Heliu, Argo, Rado…” Ret rattled off the names without emotion.
“Which elements were they given?” Neo inquired. “And where were they hidden?”
Ret was about to dish out his elemental travelogue when he caught himself. “Neo, sir,” trying not to seem disrespectful, “I’m not sure this is the best time to discuss all of this. I mean, I’m already here, you say the element is right over there, and Lye isn’t around to get in the way—this never happens. There’s got to be a reason why everything has fallen into place so quickly and easily, don’t you think?”
As if he had only heard one word, Neo nodded his head and said, “Ah, time.” His eyes were closed, and he didn’t seem altogether pleased. “So the Oracle has allowed you a bit more time with this element, is that right?”
“Uh, I guess,” Ret thought. “Or it’s just speeding things up. I know you haven’t been aboveground in a long time, but things are pretty crazy up there right now. The continents are coming back together, the whole world is in chaos, and everybody hates me.”
“Everybody?” Again, Ret wondered if the Guardian was hearing only a word or two of what he was saying, as some old folks are known to do.
“Just about,” Ret iterated.
“Why?” Neo asked.
With a huff, Ret said, “I don’t know, ask them.”
“Why don’t you ask them?” Neo pressed.
“Because they think I’m strange.”
“Have you told them how you feel?”
“I’ve thought about it,” Ret confessed.
“Then why don’t you?”
“I don’t know,” Ret sighed, tired of being interrogated. “Sounds like a lot of work, I guess.”
“So you’re lazy?” Neo joked.
“No,” Ret quickly returned. “I just don’t have that kind of time right now. I need to focus on finding the last two elements.”
“Ah, time,” Neo repeated from earlier, dropping a subtle hint. Then he added, “Well, young man, you might say that’s what the wood element is all about: time.”
Perplexed, Ret asked, “What do you mean?”
“What does a seed need in order to grow?” Neo put forth.
Ret shrugged and suggested, “Water, sunlight, soil…”
“Those are things that it needs to produce its leaves, roots, and fruits,” Neo told him. “But what does it need in order to grow—to grow those leaves, roots, and fruits and eventually become the plant it was destined to become?”
Ret shook his head.
“It needs time,” Neo answered his own question. “That’s what wood is: the evidence of time.” The Guardian reached back to touch the colossal root behind them. “Do you have any idea how long it took for this tree to grow?—how much time nature has invested in this tree?” Neo was caressing the root as he would a beloved pet. “Odds are you’ve had some interactions with plants and seeds recently.” Ret nodded in agreement. “Did you supply any water or sunlight or other nutrients to make them grow?”
Ret shook his head; he had not.
“Then what was it, I wonder, that enabled you to do so?” Neo taught. When Ret could not come up with an answer, the Guardian said, “To have power over wood is to have some influence over time.”
Perhaps the geriatric’s words were true. That night on the cargo plane, Ret had grown a tree from a seed in a matter of minutes, a process that naturally would have taken many years. Then he thought of the day at the Kremlin Senate building, when he had added instant size to the spruce tree, a species known for its very slow growth. Yes, it seemed the wood element was a matter of time.
“That makes sense,” Ret said, suddenly cheery. “I think I understand now, thanks.” He got up to leave.
“Where are you going?” Neo questioned.
“To get the Oracle,” Ret told him. “It’s just aboveground, I’ll be right back. Then I can get this show on the road.”
As if Ret had missed an important lesson, Neo closed his eyes and shook his bowed head with an experienced smile. Then he said, “And how do you plan to get back up there?”
“Well, since you won’t tell me, I’ll just blast through the ground,” Ret reasoned. “I have power over earth, remember?”
Just as Ret was about to force his way back to ground level, he heard the Guardian mumble, “Won’t work.”
Like a meddlesome wart that keeps growing back, Ret glowered at Neo and asked, “And why won’t it work?”
“Because you’re going to try to go up by going down,” Neo pointed out.
Shifting his weight to one side, Ret stared at the Guardian with a face that seemed to say, “Would you just go away.”
“You’re already down,” Neo continued. “You need to go up. But you’ll never get up by going down. It’s all in your head, see. You need to adjust your perception of things.”
“So we really are upside-down here,” Ret stated, trying to add some certainty to what he had already suspected.
“That depends on your point of view,” Neo said. “Everything seems right-side-up to me here, but if I were to go to where you just came from, everything would appear upside-down to me. It’s all in how you look at things.”
Ret had never been so confused in all his life. He finally came right out and said, “Do you want me to collect this element or not?”
“Of course I do,” Neo snickered.
“Then why aren’t you helping me?”
“I am, you just don’t see it,” said Neo. “Besides, you’re not ready yet.”
“Excuse me?” Ret argued, taking some offense.
“You still have much to learn.”
“Like what?” Ret debated. “How am I ‘not ready yet’?”
His spacey expression looking more and more like a sagacious one, the Guardian taught, “In order to gain mastery over something, you must first become subject to it.” Neo was starting to sound a lot like Rado. “This is especially true with the wood element. If you desire to control growth, you must first let it control you.”
Ret scrunched up his face and asked, “What does that mean?”
“It means you have more growing to do, son,” Neo explained with a fatherly tone. “You shouldn’t be trying to get through the elements; you should be trying to get the elements through you.”
“And how do I get the wood element through me?” Ret inquired, feeling put out for being called out.
“Well, for starters, we’ve been talking for several minutes now, and you still haven’t told me your name.”
“So?” Ret scoffed. “What does that have to do with the wood element?”
“It has everything to do with it!” Neo countered.
&nb
sp; Ret had had enough. The old geezer was messing with his mind—just playing a silly trick that was getting in the way of Ret reaching his objective. For all Ret knew, this annoying man was an impostor, a puppet placed by Lye to hedge up the way.
“I don’t have time for this,” Ret concluded as he turned to leave. He was too annoyed to hear the Guardian reply, with some disappointment, “Exactly.”
“Thanks anyway,” Ret said sarcastically as he started pacing away.
“Where are you going?” Neo called from his bench.
“For a walk,” Ret informed him, choosing to leave unsaid the real reason of “to get away from you.”
“Good idea, always helps me,” Neo returned. “Make sure to take your time.”
Still marching off, Ret said, “How did I know you were going to say that?”
Then Neo added one final caution, “Don’t let the game distract you from the goal, Ret.”
Ret froze. His feet slid a bit from such an abrupt stop in the loose dirt, creating a small cloud of dust. Not only was Neo’s warning one of Ret’s own recent laments, but how did he know Ret’s name? Ret spun around to investigate.
But the Guardian was gone. Not even the wooden bench was to be found. Ret was now downright perplexed. Had it all been a product of his imagination—a desert mirage, perhaps?
This could not have come at a worse time. Just a few minutes ago, Ret was on track to collect the element in record speed, but his efforts had been completely derailed—by the Guardian himself, no less! Their conversation left Ret in an unpleasant mood, a mixture of offense and sadness with an overall feeling of vexation. On one hand, he felt quite a bit insulted to have been told he wasn’t ready to collect the element (“What more do I need to learn?”), while on the other hand, he was displeased to have been censured by his own critique (“Did I actually let the game distract me from the goal?”). More than anything, however, Ret was dumbfounded to have just been turned away by a Guardian, of all people (“And how did Neo know my name?”).
Hoping to clear his clouded mind, Ret trekked deeper into the desert, blazing a trail through the brush. He knew neither where he was going nor what he should be doing, so he wandered and, as Neo had recommended, took his time.
This was one of the strangest lands Ret had ever seen. For the most part, it was remarkably flat. But now, close at hand and in the distance, he could see giant rock formations of the most peculiar shapes. These were not mountains but mesas—great slabs of pure rock with flat tops instead of pointed peaks—and neither were their sides sloped but vertical. In some incredible way, these mega massifs rose right out of the desert plains, like a giant’s set of building blocks.
It was clear that the culprit was the extensive root system that meandered throughout the entire area. Over the centuries, as these roots pushed through the earth, they deformed the landscape, forcing sections of rock up here and causing other areas to break away there. Ret likened it to sidewalks back home, displaced by the roots of mighty oak trees growing in narrow parkways. A similar thing had taken place in this lost land, though on a much grander scale.
The scenery took on a sense of fascination when Ret considered the time it took to create it. Much like how a little water can, over time, carve a grand canyon out of sheer rock, these roots had found a way when there wasn’t one, cutting a slice and then growing it over a span of years and years. In the process, they split bedrock, leaving behind ravines and gullies that only nature could design, for truly these were amazing sights to behold.
Ret’s favorite formations, however, were the buttes—those stand-alone structures that seemed but break-offs of larger mesas, though more impressive because their height exceeded their width. They were so unreal that they almost looked built by man rather than forged by nature. Like isolated skyscrapers, they rose sharply out of the ground, their walls impeccably smooth and straight. Their tops staggered upwards like a tiered and tiled roof, resembling a cake with a topping of large chocolate shavings. Many of the buttes were half-buried in dirt, giving them the appearance of unfinished sculptures, expertly chiseled by a skilled hand.
All in all, it was a land of enchantment, and Ret couldn’t get enough of it. He felt like an ant strolling among sand castles. Every mesa and butte—each plateau and hoodoo—was an architectural feat that deserved a lifetime of study. Ranging in color from reds and yellows to every shade of brown, there were curves so smooth and angles so straight that some formations looked like the remnants of medieval fortresses, constructed right out of the cliff sides. Truly, this was a land lost in time, one whose wonder Ret had initially overlooked. Who knew there could be so much beauty in ugliness—so much goodness in badlands?
Just then, Ret saw something out of the corner of his eye. It was a woman, sneaking from boulder to boulder along the base of one of the large mesas. Ret set off in that direction, hoping the individual knew how to return aboveground.
As soon as the person caught sight of Ret, however, she took off running.
“Hey!” Ret called out after her. “Wait!”
The stranger seemed panicked, frantically sprinting toward a dark hole at the base of the large mesa. Ret knew he wouldn’t catch her in time, so he rolled one of the free boulders in front of the entrance and blocked it.
Desperate, the woman turned down a cleft in the rock face, but it turned out to be a dead end. When Ret arrived, he saw the terrified soul huddled in the farthest corner, curled up and shaking.
“I’m sorry if I scared you,” Ret said delicately, slowly stepping closer. “I’m wondering if you might be able to help me.”
Ret’s plea for help seemed to calm the poor lady. She slowly retreated from the corner, her hand covering most of her face. She was fully clothed, which Ret thought was odd considering the hot and arid climate.
“My name is Ret,” he told her. “What’s yours?”
“Nika,” she replied.
Ret had found Serge’s sister.
CHAPTER 9
CHRISTMAS GUARDIAN ANGEL
Life at the Keep could be summed up in one word: depressing. After all, the very reason for their relocation had been to avert death, which had cast a pall on the entire event from day one. These days, however, the permanency of the situation was beginning to sink in. As grateful as the staff and students were for the safety and security that their new residence afforded, they felt somewhat like refugees escaping persecution. Granted, the Keep was just a few miles down the road from the Manor, but at the end of the day the place was still just a house to them—one that didn’t quite feel like home.
No, what the Keep really felt like was something of a cross between a hospital and a prison, thanks in part to its white walls, eerie halls, and complete lack of windows. Of course, there were windows in the mansion house up on the ground level, but no one lived in it, not only because it reminded Stone too much of Virginia but also because no one else felt comfortable moving in.
As such, everyone lived underground, a dismal situation in itself that made it seem as though they were in hiding (which wasn’t far from the truth). They attempted to add some fresh paint here and build a new wing there, but, try as they might, things just lacked a certain Coy factor: there was no savanna for the rhinos to roam in, no aquarium for the sharks to swim in, no bell tower for the hours to chime in. Everywhere you looked, there were reminders that the Manor was a thing of the past: the planetarium’s nine magnetic spheres sat in a jumbled mess, the Studatory had been crammed into three metal cargo containers, the life-sized pool table lay dismantled. Perhaps the best symbol of the relocation was on the south lawn, where a veritable nursery had been created from all of the Manor’s plants and trees, uprooted and shoved into pots for the time being. Every aspect of daily life had been altered—even the route to school, which no longer started on a suspended platform and crossed a submersible bridge but now began in the most bland and boring way possible: on a driveway.
Yes, one thing was very clear: the Keep was no Coy Man
or.
True, the Keep was still impressive in its own right. Its square footage likely rivaled, if not surpassed, the Manor’s, and no one had even dared to explore its furthest reaches yet. Not to mention it was also full of unique and valuable (and at times weird) stuff. It even boasted a few features that the Manor did not have, like a force field around the entire property and a direct communication link to Waters Deep.
The main difference between the two properties, then, could be found in their purposes. The Manor strove to help people, but the Keep sought to hurt them; one had all sorts of doodads to teach and instruct, but the other kept all kinds of knick-knacks to spy and exploit. And when it came to what each had to offer the world, they were polar opposites: the Keep a curse, the Manor a cure.
Little wonder their new dwelling was so dismal. Gloom hung in the air, misery lurked around every corner, and the whole kit and caboodle was awash with Lye. Could the Keep ever be turned from an instrument of evil to a vehicle for good?
Maybe. But until then, Christmas was coming, and there was absolutely no evidence of it throughout the Keep. It gave Pauline an idea one afternoon that she hoped would help shake off everyone’s blues, especially her own.
“Haul out the holly!” she cried as she entered the small living room of the apartment-like chamber where the Coopers lived, carved out of the unfinished portion of the Keep’s top floor. “Only two weeks until Christmas and not a single decoration to be found—no wreaths, no tinsel, not even a tree.” She was trying to stay positive in the face of so much dreariness. “I will not rest today until I’ve found at least one decoration. Who’s with me?”
Sitting on the couch, Paige and Ana just stared at her glumly.
“There’s some mistletoe growing on one of the trees out back,” Paige informed her.
