by Ceri Clark
Chero looked relieved. ‘You will want to go to the temple. I’m not sure if your parents will have taken you there before, but you will need it to contact the High-King. If he is here you will be able to talk to him. Finish your meal and Sori will take you. He is your high priest as well as your ambassador.’ Shenella twisted to look at Sori. He grinned shamefaced.
‘Didn’t I tell you?’
Slotting back into his body, Jake came to with Kiera and Mirim looking down at him concerned.
“I couldn’t find him,” he said. “The trail went cold - I’m exhausted.” Jake pushed himself up and stretched, “How long was I gone?”
“Only about an hour, I’ve brought some maps in from another room. We can combine our minds and do a search using it - if you are feeling up to it?”
“Mirim, no offence but I need a break. It’s night, I’m tired, you’re tired and I can see that Kiera is tired too. There must be some bedrooms around here; it used to house a complete city!”
Mirim shrugged. “All right.”
She put the maps down and carefully placed them on a shelf next to the door.
“Follow me.”
The main control room led off to several apartments. The first five were the largest. A couple of the other doors were open and he could see they were smaller and empty. They must have either converted it from several apartments to make them bigger or made smaller he thought. Either way it wasn’t a coincidence there was one for each of the five Royal Houses.
Jake peered into Kiera’s room before she closed the door. It seemed they liked to color code. Hers was green as his had rich cream and white fabrics.
“You’d think the family would use the opportunity to use other colors” he joked to Karl as they entered the High-King’s apartment.
“They probably needed the color schemes to tell them apart.” He replied opening a cupboard door. “Where am I going to sleep?”
Mirim stood behind them, “I wasn’t expecting anyone else, but there is another room which the servants used behind there.” She pointed to a door Jake and Karl had missed in their quick inspection. Karl waited before the door closed.
“Charming. Bossy isn’t she?”
“Yeah, probably not used to people.” Jake thought about the loneliness he felt during their merge.
“Did you just hear her, she probably thinks of me as a bleeding servant.”
“Ignore her.”
“Easy for you to say, you’re one of them. Clearly I can’t look after myself. My sword fighting is better than yours, and I did go to Judo for two weeks.”
Jake and Karl looked at each other for a moment before Jake raised an eyebrow at the thought. There was a second of quiet before they both burst into laughter.
“Imagine getting her in an arm lock.” gulped Karl.
“I think that’s wrestling,” snorted Jake, “but she could probably do with it.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: WATER QUEEN
Adramelech hung in no-space, consumed by thoughts. The boy must have felt the fire element. To get to him all he had to do was to appear somewhere and his natural form would do the rest. There was only one problem with this plan. The boy would be wondering why he couldn’t track him before.
He would have to appear by a volcano he decided. Ironic, after setting one off on Earth, he was going to use the same one on Eleria. That was what was so great about interdimensional travel he mused. If you knew roughly where something was in one world there was a high percentage chance it would be there in most of the dimensions.
Actually no, he changed his mind. He would need a more active volcano than that one and there was only one active volcano in this part of the world. Decision made, he returned to normal space and time.
The next morning Jake woke up to Mirim banging on the door. That girl is keen, he thought.
“Okay, Okay!”
Picking up his clothes from the floor he dressed quickly and rushed to the control room. “What’s the rush?”
Kiera walked in from another door sleepy-eyed.
“I used the crystals to scout the city, and they know you are here. Your presence in Eleria is making Aras even more ill. They know where we are! They’re preparing their army!” Mirim burst out in a rush.
Kiera looked confused, “Slow down, slow down. How did you get to Eleria?”
Mirim sat down heavily on the chair by her console. “We’re in Eleria. The capital is called Naven. I went there the same way Jake did last night. I astral projected. I was listening to one of his advisers, and I don’t know how but he knew I was there! I came back as soon as I realized but I found out that Aras followed you back last night. He’s able to leave his body too. It is the only way he can cope with the pain. He must have sensed you and followed you back.”
Mirim’s voice rose, “No one has known where the Citadel is for thousands of years, apart from the five families. You’re back for one night and the Magi know exactly where it is. Do you know what they could do with the power in this place?”
Jake shrugged, “So he knows exactly where we are. We’re underwater, right?” She nodded. “So how are they going to get to us?”
She rolled her eyes. “He may only be half an Elementi but his other half is Magi. They have the power of illusion and what they can’t do through illusion they have their armies and creatures they trap from other dimensions.”
“Eh, you never mentioned that before.”
“They can’t travel between dimensions. Oh sure, they did once - that’s how they came to this world. Sometime in the past they lost that ability. They can still reach out and trap aliens though. If a being is already moving through the dimensions, if they are in no-space, they are fair game to them.
“They don’t understand how it works any more but they know enough to build barriers. I saw one of their lesser mages on Pumar once. It was amazing. He obviously wasn’t that good or he wouldn’t have been entertaining guests at the island, but he was still worth watching. He created whole views in front of us. One moment we were on the island and the next I could have sworn I was transported physically to Naven. He ended his act with the trapping of a Deoc.”
“What’s a Deoc?” Kiera interrupted.
“A creature made of fire. In the dimensions everything has a possibility,” she explained. “There are beings made of pure fire, or water, or air or even earth. That’s how my ancestors and your parents got you out. Since these beings are pure energy they are able to travel through the dimensions a lot easier than we ever could. The Elementi used them as guardians for their children for centuries. When the children were old enough to look after themselves the beings return to where they come from. Unlike with the Magi though, these creatures served us willingly. There was genuine respect between us, before the change there were regular cultural exchanges.
“The ones who helped you would have probably died on Earth. There are some places that are anathema to them, where they can’t survive. We are not sure why but Earth is one of those places. They were brave to take you. I hope they escaped in time.”
Annoyed at the side-track, Kiera tried to bring the conversation back round to the danger. “How long do we have before the Emperor’s army gets here?” she demanded.
“Two days minimum, four days at the most,” Mirim replied quietly.
“Well I vote we go back to Earth,” Jake said. “He can’t follow us there - you said so yourself.” Turning to Kiera he asked, “What about you? This isn’t our fight. This was our parent’s life - not ours. We still have a choice.”
“I think we should stay. What have we got to look forward to at home? I don’t have a life there, and what will yours be like? Here you are... you will be the next High-King! At home you would probably spend a couple more years at school, three at University and a dead-end job working in computers or maybe banking. Wouldn’t you rather be royalty?”
“We could get killed here!”
“I told you that you can’t go back, not for months anyway. If it�
��s any consolation, he won’t destroy this place. He will want to be able to use the Matrix and he can’t do that except from in here. All the gates were disabled at the time of the Change, so he will only be able to get through by teleporting - he won’t have enough power for that. He could only get here by using the pathway from the island. Once they get here, it won’t be long before they discover that.”
“So, what are our choices,” he demanded.
“We need to unite the Elementi here. They won’t be a match for us reunited. They were only able to defeat our ancestors before because of trickery. That won’t happen again.”
“Okay, where’s that map.” Resigned he held his hand out.
Ignoring his hand, Mirim pulled up a table he hadn’t noticed before and spread out a map of the planet.
“Big enough is it?” Jake asked sarcastically. He was beginning to like the older girl less and less. He was still furious.
Mirim replied. “We don’t need a detailed map; it’s only a starting point for us. It anchors us to reality.”
“Why can’t we project a map on the wall?”
“We could, but it works better to have something solid under your hands.”
Crystals at the ready, all three joined their minds together. Karl looked on from the doorway and brushed his hair back with his fingers. He subconsciously wiped the gel on his trousers. There wasn’t anything he could help with. He moved off into the corridor. If they were going to be there a while, he may as well do something useful. There might be some clothes around or, and he brightened at the thought, there might be some cool gadgets! He took another look at his friend and decided to go exploring.
Jake connected to the Matrix first, bringing along the other two, first Kiera, Mirim. He found it easier to connect to Kiera than Mirim, maybe because Mirim had grown up in an alien world to him.
It felt natural to become part of the Matrix, he was whole again. As he stared at the map, it shimmered before his eyes to become the world as if from a bird’s-eye view. It looked much like his own world he thought. Their minds swept west over the ocean until they reached a large land mass.
‘That’s America,’ he thought. Mirim’s thought reached him, ‘We call it the Dark Continent. It’s where the Magi live. They appeared about three hundred years ago. Our people ignored them at first but they soon got our attention after their killing spree.’ Her thoughts filled with bitterness.
Their minds floated over the world, searching systematically. He must be somewhere! He could feel the others’ despair when they passed through what he knew as Asia with no sign of the rogue element. Continuing west they soon arrived back at Europe. He was about to give up when he felt... something? It was just a twinge but it was enough to get his attention.
Halting in mid-air he oriented himself - he was over Italy. He recognized the shape. Heart in his mouth, he descended. No it couldn’t be. That’s just too weird. He’d visited there when he was ten. Pompeii, but it wasn’t how he remembered it. He tried to reconcile what he could see with what he remembered. There was the volcano but the towns weren’t there. Only one small village existed at the foot of the volcano.
Kiera was the first to notice it was smoking. ‘He has to be here,’ she shared her thought with the other two. ‘Go down and have a look.’
‘No,’ that thought he saw came from Mirim. ‘We know he will be here. We’ll never find him out here with just our astral selves; he is next to the most powerful source of his element there is. It will mask him easily. He may not be planning to hide, but he will be hidden next to that volcano.’
Mirim dropped out of the connection taking Kiera too. Reluctantly Jake let the familiar meld go to find he was staring at the map with a cross marked neatly over Italy.
“We need to go to Italy,” he said.
“Somara” Mirim corrected, “We are not on Earth anymore.”
The temple wasn’t what Shenella expected. Only a short swim away, it looked like it had been raised from the seabed. The walls were covered in coral and unlike the canyon there were no glowing plants over it.
Sori beside her, sensing her question answered it unasked.
‘This temple is hidden. It would not do to advertise its presence. Only a few of us know exactly where it is. All the Merpeople are unquestionably loyal of course, there would be no point in betraying the people. We couldn’t live with the humans for too long. Many of our people have no interest in the temple, partly so if anyone were captured they wouldn’t be able to betray its location but partly because they know it is looked after. They don’t have to believe in the Water Queen or Goddess. They know she exists!
‘The temple is powered by the tides. I am no engineer and couldn’t tell you how it works - only that it does. It is pretty though isn’t it?’
Shenella agreed. The reds, pinks and yellows of the coral were an arresting sight. Shenella and Sori hung in the water meters away from the building using only the light they carried to see it.
‘Once we are inside,’ Sori continued, ‘it won’t be so dark. There are lights there like magic, though I know they are not. You place your hand on them and the walls just light up. It is miraculous. So much was lost during the Magi reign!’
At the entrance there was a small bare room. They floated in gently. Sori covered his lamp and pulled a lever on the wall. The door closed and a long slow hiss told him the water was being drawn away from the room. Within seconds the room was free of water, replaced with clean smelling air.
“Ready?” he asked.
Astounded and very wet, she realized, she followed him as he entered the next room. It was another small bare room. She was about to question Sori again when a warm breeze came from the corners to dry them. When they were dry, Sori stepped forward to press another lever.
They emerged into a room she guessed was twice the size of the great hall in the castle in Naven. She guessed they were in the middle of the building, in the foyer. On the floor was the Aquel crest, a fountain carved into the rock. Looking up she could see four, no five stories. The walls were a brilliant white and each level had a balcony.
“Is that - Salarian stone?” She was impressed.
“Yes”
“How did they get it down here?”
“Who knows? The Elementi did it centuries ago. This way.”
His steps echoed on the stone floor. Climbing the stairs he stared behind at her with a raised brow, “Are you coming?”
“Um yes, sorry.” She hurried to climb the stairs after him. The Merpeople were minimalist, she thought. There was no decoration at all that she could see. Corridor after corridor was a featureless white. No pictures, just white floor and white walls. It was all very different from the castle, she thought. The old Elementi place was filled with pictures of the current and old royal families. They wouldn’t want anyone to question the unbroken hereditary line of the Emperor now would they?
Right at the top of the building, they arrived, out of breath, at a room that covered the entire floor. Shenella stared in wonder at the ceiling. She could see the sea though it. Without thought she reached up on her tiptoes to touch it. Her fingertips met a tingling barrier - not the glass she was expecting.
Sori enjoying her surprise gently moved her aside to walk past her to get to the pedestal in the middle. It was made of the same stone as the walls and floor. She moved closer, curious.
At the top of the pedestal was a carved hand. It looked like it should be holding something. Instinctively, she took out her crystal from the pouch she’d found in the underwater apartment that now hung around her waist. Sori nodded in encouragement. She studied it for a moment and slotted the stone into the hand and stepped back. Bright light flashed from the crystal illuminating the room.
When the light faded, she looked around in confusion. Sori still stood beside her but the room no longer looked bare. Sensing his thoughts she knew Sori couldn’t see what she could. She extended her awareness around him so he could share it.
The
re was a semi-circular table in front of her. It had five types of colored crystals embedded in it. Red, yellow, white, green and... With her enhanced dual perception, she could see the ghostly image of the pedestal superimposed on the blue section.
There were three other people in the room she counted. They hadn’t noticed her yet, which gave her the opportunity to study them. They were all young, the boy she judged to be around fourteen with bright straw-colored hair. He could almost be Aras’ younger brother she thought. The other two were probably slightly older than her, maybe fifteen or sixteen years old, she guessed.
The girl in yellow held herself more confidently than the other two she noticed. They were all strangely dressed. The yellow garments were old-fashioned but the outfits from the other two were unfamiliar.
The trio bent over a map. Sori gasped beside her. Through their connection Shenella heard the thought he sent her, “The Elementi are almost complete. Look at the consoles, the only color not fully lit up is red!”
Kiera noticed her first. Mirim and Jake were sniping at each other again. She was tactfully trying to avoid getting involved, looking at the consoles she was surprised to see the blue one lit up in front of her. Out of the corner of her eye she saw movement. Turning slowly, she was confronted by the sight of a younger girl. She was blond with piercing sea-green eyes. Behind her was a second ghostly figure of a man. Kiera reached behind her and tapped Jake’s arm. He didn’t respond. She tapped him again.
“Kiera, hang on a minute.” he said not turning around. She tapped him again, this time more insistently.
“Jake!”
He spun around. “What? Oh.”
Mirim in mid-flow followed his gaze. She took in the girl’s appearance, noting the sea grass material of her outfit.
“Shey!” she exclaimed.
“How did you get in?” Jake demanded.
Mirim put a soothing hand on his arm.
“It’s all right; she’s not here. She must be broadcasting from the temple?” She waited for Shenella’s confirmation. Getting a nod, she continued.
