by Adam Holt
These ships will leave, I thought, staring at the slave’s faces, but I don’t know if the Lord Ascendant will need these slaves soon. He’ll make more on Earth.
I heard the clank of boots on the ledge. A small group of black staffs marched past my hiding spot and disappeared down a corridor. I stepped onto the ledge and looked up into the distance. I could see fairly high. Just a few portals and I’m on the Seventh Step, I thought. It was that simple. I portaled my way up the newel, and moments later I found myself walking toward a door that led to the Seventh Step. On it was the crown with three rubies above the Earth. This led to the Seventh Step, but I had not seen the other side. I would have to open it to enter. I would have to fight my way out.
There were two guards on the Fifth Step. Let’s hope for those odds on the other side.
The two guards beside the door never saw it coming. When the door to the Seventh Step slid open, they expected to see a black staff or some high-ranking Ascendant. What they saw instead was the scrawny Fourther with no weapons in his hands. I stepped out casually and took in the surroundings. Yep, two guards, another empty courtyard, and in the distance a purple tower. My arrival completely caught them off guard, which gave me enough time to put one of them in a chokehold. Yes, the sacred powers are definitely in full effect! He dropped his staff and tried to grab me from behind but I held on tight like my dad taught me. The other black staff realized what was happening, but he could not believe it.
“The Red Thief,” he whispered.
“You thought I would be bigger,” I said. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
One black staff crumpled to the ground, and the other was about to shout for help, so I created a portal beneath him and his shout became a cry of surprise. He disappeared from view, but he wouldn’t be gone for long. The portal I created was close by.
I dragged the first guard in front of the door and then grabbed his black staff. I threw myself against the wall beside the door and waited. Moments later the door hissed open and the second guard charged out furiously. He tripped over the first guard and fell flat on his face. I blasted both of the guards with a stun shot and lugged them both into a dark spot on the side of the street.
This might be a good time to pick up a better disguise, I thought. I took off one of their tunics and put it on over mine. It was enormous but made me looked more like a short, fat black staff than the Red Thief. I threw on the other guard’s tunic as well. They were both awake and in their underwear at this point, stunned and frozen, thinking that this was their end. I laughed at the situation. I stood there in their oversized tunics with a black staff in my hand.
“I’m a thief, not a killer,” I told them.
“However, he has killed a man,” explained Little Bacon.
The guards waited to see their fate. I wound up and stunned them as hard as I possibly could and headed on my way. That would buy me at least an hour, and that was all I needed if I moved quickly.
EAR – HEART – MIND
Why did this of all things make me stop?
After I knocked out the guards, I hopped from portal to portal to hurry my trip. There was only one street on the Seventh Step, a kilometer wide and paved with massive purple stones. It was flanked by high walls on both sides at first, but eventually the walls gave way to gates. On one side of the street sat an enormous palace behind a gold and black gate. It nearly stretched across the length of the entire Step. The Lord Ascendant’s palace.
On the other side were hundreds of futuristic apartment buildings. It was the dead of night, but a few Ascendant still crossed between the palace and the apartments on hovering chariots. It would have been impossible to pass them, but it was easy using portals. I created one in front of me, then dove into it and popped up fifty feet down the street in a dark spot. I portaled my way across the step until I reached the thing that made me stop.
It was a statue of a white bull, probably one hundred feet high. On top of the bull was a girl. The story of Europa and Zeus again, I thought to myself, but as I glanced at the statue, I noticed that the bull reared its head in fear. Europa, on the other hand, looked triumphant. She dug her hands into his hide and smiled wickedly. Isn’t she supposed to be scared and not the other way around? Janice would be fascinated. I felt that itch in the back of my mind about the myth. The Ascendant had changed the end of the myth, and this was yet another twist that she would enjoy.
The first rays of Jupiter streamed across the Step. Dawn. My destination was close. In the center of the street in the middle of the Seventh Step was the purple tower. A field of dry grass surrounded it. Tree stumps, too. The Lord Ascendant once kept the Sacred there, and now that it was gone, the life around it had dried up. I imagined Tabitha trapped in that tower, drying up and blowing away, too. That all ends this morning.
A door on the side of the purple tower was cracked open. Finally an easy entrance and exit. I portaled in front of the door and slid through the opening. Inside there was a spiral staircase that led upward through the ceiling. From one room to the next in the tower I advanced cautiously. A yellow room, a green room, then a blue, all the colors of Rathmore. It won’t be long until I reach the top. I tried to picture it, but my sacred vision didn’t work. Maybe I was just too distracted.
Finally I saw the dim purple above me. Up the last few steps I crept and found myself standing in the ruins of a beautiful room. A bed, a desk, several couches and chairs surrounded it. They looked fit for the Queen of England, but the ceiling was cracked. It let in the faint light of Jupiter.
On the far end of the room was a balcony. On the balcony stood a girl. And the girl was my friend. She wore a purple tunic and gazed into the distance just as she had in my vision.
I took in the scene for a moment. This is the end of sneaking around in the dark by myself, I thought. It reminded me of something that the Sacred once asked me. Is this the beginning again? Sometimes I forget if you are young or old, my friend. After traveling a billion miles to see her, I could now understand. Seeing her made me feel both young and old.
I cleared my throat. She didn’t notice. That was probably for the best. I stripped off the two tunics and remembered what Icarus said about the tattoos. The Encountered can alter them, so I made mine disappear. I looked at myself in a mirror on the wall. I looked like me.
I knocked on a wooden table beside me. Tabitha then turned around.
“You came,” she said. “I had faith that you would.”
She ran toward me. We embraced, and the universe held its breath. This was the perfect moment that I had hoped for, better than any vision I had seen. We were in the tower, and we were as one.
“I kept my promise,” I told her. “You knew that I would.”
“Always,” she said. “Now I wish that you had not.” She backed away from me and gathered me in with her beautiful green eyes.
“Well come on, we’ve got to move,” I said, “I knocked out two guards and they’ll be unstunned soon. If we get to the submarine soon enough we’ll—what did you say?
It took that long for her words to travel from my ears to my mind.
“I wish you had stayed on Earth,” she said, stepping back toward the balcony. Her words didn’t register.
“We’ve got to run. Now. My powers have returned. I came to save you.”
“No,” she said, her hands trembling. “Things are not the same. There’s so much you don’t know. The Ascendant are not who you think they are. I’m not who I used to be.”
Her words ripped their way through the air between us, from my mind to my heart. How could any of that be true? She looked back to the balcony. A curtain hung on each side. The head of a black staff appeared behind one of the curtains, held by a golden hand.
“Trackman,” I gasped.
He walked into view. Wearing a purple robe and a crown with three rubies, like a king with a scepter. I shook my arm free from its sling and felt the fire in my hands.
“You are a clever little fox, Tully. You ha
d us fooled for a while, but the fox can only stay hidden so long. The hounds always win in the end. Now keep those hands at your side. I do love dear Tabitha and so do you. She has been so cooperative, and I would hate to lose her after all she has done for both of us.”
An icicle cut its way through my insides and left a trail of questions in its path. This was not how the vision went. I saw her in this tower. I passed through shadow to get here, like the Sacred said. I did everything right, and now everything is wrong.
“Tully, listen to him,” she said. “Or at least listen to me. I can explain.”
I threw up my hands. River of fire. River of fire.
“What’s to explain? Trackman, if you let us go I will let you live.”
The end of Trackman’s staff buzzed. My hands glowed brighter.
“No! The Ascendant are us,” she blurted out. “We are them.”
It was weird enough to make me listen.
“Is that a Tabism?” I said. She shook her head.
“Better to listen than die,” he said. “If you’re looking for a fight, you will lose her, here and now. There is only one way to win now, Tully. To understand, and then to join us. Even after all of this, the Ascendant could forgive you. You could be of some value to us when we reclaim the world.”
“The world that you lied to?”
“We did not lie,” he said. “You do have a disease, Tully. You think that you can save the Earth from aliens. You’re wrong. We are going to save the Earth from you.”
“Tabitha, we’re going,” I said, creating a portal between us. “Jump in and we’re gone.”
“No, Tully, I’m staying. I want to stay.”
My heart crumpled like paper to ashes in a fire. “No, you don’t.”
“I am where I want to be,” she said.
I rummaged through my tunic and found a crumple piece of gray cloth. The cloth glowed bright red.
“Take hold of this scarf and say that again,” I said, tears trickling down my face.
She shook her head.
“Shall I tell him, child? Or would you like to explain?”
“Explain what?”
I was starting to see where they were headed, and I didn’t like it at all. I liked it more when I was fighting aliens, but what if...
“Have you not put the puzzle pieces together? Not with all your Sacred Visions? You are Encountered. Certainly you have had visions.”
“What about my visions?”
“Europa, Tully. The Ascendant have lived here for centuries. Before that, we traveled the universe, but one can only travel so long before wanting to return home. And Earth is home.”
Earth is home? I shook my head. What was he saying?
“Foolish boy, remember the myth of Europa and Zeus,” he said. “Europa is carried away by the bull. He whisks her away and later reveals himself to her as a god. And so it was with us, Tully. There is truth in the myth, but it’s not about a girl. It’s about a race of people. Do you not see this, Tully?”
The myth collided with reality. My mind fell through the floor. Someone took them into space like Zeus took Europa. A girl on a bull. A girl, not an alien. I could see her for what she truly was, just like Adèle with her tattoos. It was too much to take in, but Trackman kept speaking.
“We are Europa,” he said. “We left the Earth thousands of years ago. The truth is in our name. We are the Ascendant. We ascended, Tully, captured by an alien race. Now we return to claim what was ours.”
The icicle melted, and it felt like frozen poison in my veins.
“No, that can’t be true,” I said, but something down deep told me this was not Ascendant propaganda.
“You’re not aliens.”
“We are human,” he said, “but we are not Earthers. Our culture excelled all others on Earth in its day. That is why we were chosen to leave.”
“Then who is the white bull? Who brought you into space?”
“We erased their names long ago,” he said. “They promised us riches and wisdom and tricked us into leaving Earth. Then they treated us like slaves. In time we overthrew them. We claimed their empire, just as we will reclaim the Earth.”
The icicle in my stomach became a frozen poison in my veins.
“We are the Ascendant,” he said. “We always rise. We rose from the Earth, rose up against the Nameless Ones, and now we rise to rule the Earth.”
“You think you are some kind of chosen race,” I said.
“We were born to rule, Tully. The Earthers will see this, and they will be wise to welcome us back with open arms. This would have happened months ago. We would have taken Earth by surprise, but you delayed our plan.”
“I wrecked your plan,” I said. “You still don’t have the Sacred.”
“Wrecked is too strong a word, Tully. Operation Close Encounter was not a complete failure. We are resourceful. We found something just as valuable as the Sacred.”
He walked toward Tabitha. Trackman placed his hands on her shoulder, like a father would to a daughter. This sight sickened me. My head started to spin.
“So you captured Tabitha. Used her. You made us look like bad guys and you looked like the good guys.”
“Yes, you’ve made this much easier,” he said. “As for Tabitha, we didn’t have to use her, as you say. She joined us.”
“It’s true, Tully,” she said.
It hurt doubly bad coming from both of them. When a liar and your best friend both say the same thing, it must be true. Still, I could not stomach it. I held out Tabitha’s mood scarf. It glowed red in my hand as I looked into her eyes, which welled with tears.
“Touch the scarf,” I said. “Prove to me that you feel this way.”
“Tully, please,” she said. “Join them. They are too strong, and they will treat us fairly. You’ll see.”
“I have seen plenty,” I said. “Their Undercity is full of slaves and warships, and Rathmore is just as bad. The people live in fear of the Lord Ascendant. The answer is no. Now take the scarf.”
She shook her head and turned her back on me. Tabitha abandoned me. She walked to the balcony and left me standing in front of Trackman. I looked at the portal on the floor. It reminded me of the words from an old vision: The hand that opened the door/Will have to let it close. The portal flickered, and I lost my train of thought staring at the floor with tears rolling down my cheeks.
Trackman inched forward and clucked his tongue. Then he held up his golden hand and flexed his fingers.
He raised my chin with his golden hand. “If you had joined us, I would have been merciful. You took this hand. I would have taken only one of yours, but now I want all of you. But I can’t help thinking—what a shame! All this travel and planning and fighting, and for what? Nothing.”
Everything within me turned to ice and dust.
NOTHING. NEVERMORE.
Nothing, and everything. It was Icarus’s favorite response, and I repeated it over and over in my mind. Nothing, and everything.
I remember every detail about that encounter in the purple tower, but then everything gave way to nothing. Life became a blur of noise and tumbling. Someone tackled me from behind. My hands were shackled and something covered my eyes. Strong hands dragged me down the staircase and deep under the purple tower to a damp, dark cell. A needle bit into my arm, then there was a burning in my veins. Seconds later, my pulse felt faint. Whatever they did, I allowed. I was so deep down within myself that nothing seemed real for a while—a minute, an hour, a day? I don’t know. I was not asleep but neither was I awake. I was there but I was not. Nothing, and everything.
The color of my world was a faint purple. The feeling of my world was cold stone.
Nothing. Nothing happened like it should. My visions of purple towers meant nothing. Tabitha did not want to be saved. Tabitha the tall. Tabitha the beautiful. Tabitha the changed and wrong and cold.
Trackman was still one step ahead of me. He did not need lies anymore. The Ascendant would not fail. They beat me
and now they will punish me. I will let them end this, and nothing can change my mind. Everyone kept telling me ‘Fight, but do not hate.’ The fight is over. What’s left to fight for? Nothing.
Nothing happened like it should. If I could have arrived earlier, I could have saved her. She would have listened. Trackman would not have been ready. If Icarus had not helped us, I could have found a better way. He slowed me down and made me weak. This was a mistake. I can’t take it back. I should have stayed in Alaska, forever cold and alone. Now I’ll never see the Earth again or feel the sun on my face...
One clear thought rose above the rest: There was a time when I knew nothing but thought I could fix everything. Now I know everything and there’s nothing I can fix.
...I’ll never play Cave-in! again, never get yelled at by a teacher...never eat fajitas, never go to prom...never, never, nevermore.
Maybe it was the Ascendant drugs or the fatigue, but I started chuckling to myself. Nevermore! Nevermore! We read this Edgar Allen Poe poem called “The Raven” last year in English class at Halloween. In the poem, there’s this raven that sits over this crazy guy’s door and repeats Nevermore! about three thousand times. Quoth the raven, Nevermore! It drives him totally insane. Sunjay and I even made up a game called Nevermore. He would sneak into my house, hide in my closet, and shout Nevermore! when I least expected. I did the same to him. Then we started doing it to our parents. We even nevermored my dad a few times, which is hard to do.
Before I knew it, I was curled up in a ball on the chamber floor, laughing my head off thinking about nevermore. There was a raven sitting above the door of my cell. He looked at me with his beady black eyes, eyes like Trackman’s. I was about to get nevermored.
“Tully will eat fajitas—nevermore!”
“Tully will make it home—nevermore!”
The Raven sat above my chamber door and croaked back at me, nevermoring it up. That made me laugh harder.
