I turned to Tess. She was the only one who was left. She was standing in front of her pillar, looking at it nervously. She didn’t even glance up at the approaching horde.
“Try, child,” Greystone said. His voice was gentle, but I heard the urgency beneath it.
“I can’t,” Tess said. “I don’t know what to do.”
I went to her side and put a calming hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay, Tess,” I told her. “Just try and think about the stone. Look for something in you that wants to reach out to it.”
Tess looked away, her hair covering the one eye I could see. “I can’t.”
“Look harder,” I said.
“Come on, do it already!” yelled Blade right behind me. Tess flinched at the sound of his shout.
“It’s okay, I can take’em,” Calvin said. He summoned up another little mini-tornado. It died almost immediately, and his face fell.
I turned to them. “Guys, shut up for a second. Give her a minute.”
“Sarah, we don’t have a minute,” Miles said. He looked nervously at the creatures running toward us.
I moved in closer, wrapping my arm around Tess’ shoulder and leaning down to look at the pillar with her.
“I don’t know what to do,” she whimpered.
“That’s okay,” I said, trying to make it sound like we were the only two people in the world. “Close your eyes.” She did. “Now I want you to look for something inside. Something that wasn’t there yesterday. It’s buried very, very deep.” I thought back to the stone circle. The pink stone that had hit Tess had been over the symbol of a human head surrounded by circles. “It’s somewhere in your mind. Look hard, Tess.”
She was silent for a moment. I looked nervously North. The creatures were a hundred yards away, and I heard the clattering of weapons on shields as they charged. Cara stepped forward, her soldiers surrounding her and the others nervously. Only Greystone stood unmoving, looking at me.
“I found it, but it hurts,” Tess mumbled.
“I need you to grab it and pull it to the surface,” I said hastily. “I’m sorry it hurts, Tess, but we need you to use it right now.”
“I don’t want to,” she said quietly.
“We’ll do it together, okay?” The monsters were too close. We weren’t going to make it. How fast could the wall even come up, anyway?
“Okay,” she said.
“Here we go,” I said, my voice cracking. “One.”
The monsters were fifty yards away.
“Two.”
Twenty-five.
“Three.”
I jumped as Tess screamed loud enough to tear her throat. Her eyes shot open. They had gone completely white. There was a blast with no sound. I was flung away from her, rolling over and over on the ground and coming to rest at Cara’s feet.
I looked up just as her pillar shattered into a thousand pieces, hovering in midair before her. Tess’ scream didn’t stop for a second, it just grew louder and higher and more painful. Then the pillars erupted into columns of light, blasting up into the sky and beyond, glaringly harsh on my retinas. I closed my eyes to shield them from the shine. It was like staring directly into the sun, but about a hundred times worse. A whistling, roaring noise grew on the air as wind began whipping at us, sending my hair flying back and forth in the tempest.
With a crash, a blue wave of energy erupted from the columns, spreading across the landscape in a horizontal wall that sped away into the distance in either direction. The first wave of Shadows crashed into the wall and dissolved into clouds of black smoke. Rank after rank of the creatures slammed into it, vanishing instantly into dust and scattering to the wind. They tried to stop, but the momentum of the horde was too great, and the creatures in the back shoved their brethren forward as they tried to stop, casting them to their deaths.
Finally the horde managed to slow, then stop, gnashing their teeth and slamming their weapons against their shields on the other side of the wall of energy. Their voices couldn’t penetrate the barrier, however, and suddenly all was oddly quiet on our side of the wall.
“Ha-ha-ha-holy cow!” Calvin screamed, laughing maniacally. I grinned.
“Oh jeez,” said Miles, his voice quavering. “Oh man.” His legs wobbled, and he fell to his butt on the grass.
“We did it!” Blade said, sounding the happiest I’d ever heard him in his life.
“You did,” Greystone said, his eyes alight and a smile on his wrinkled old face. “You have undergone your first trial as Realm Keepers, and a pressing trial at that, and you have passed. To, I must admit, a great amount of surprise on my part.”
“Tess!” cried someone. It was Blade. I whirled to see Tess lying on the ground where she had fallen. She wasn’t moving, and her eyes were closed.
“Oh my God!” I cried, running over to her. I lifted her head up to cradle it in my lap and put three fingers on her neck. I could feel her pulse, strong and thumping against my fingers. I looked up at Greystone. “Is she all right?”
He nodded. “She is merely exhausted. I fear this one has forgotten the parts of herself that suited her for her gift. But she will recover them in time.”
“What do you mean, the parts of herself?”
Greystone sighed. “There is much to say. It can wait for later. But see? She is not harmed.”
I looked down. Sure enough, Tess was smiling in her sleep. It was a little smile, but it reassured me. Blade, crouched beside us both, rested back on his haunches with a sigh of relief.
I stood before Greystone and smiled at him gratefully. “Thank you. Truly. We wouldn’t have made it without you.”
“Of course not!” he said gruffly. “That is my purpose.”
“And thank you, too,” I said to Cara. “You and your men risked your lives for us today, and I know many of them were lost. We’ll never forget it.”
She nodded in acknowledgment. I suddenly felt that I should do something. I didn’t know why; I only knew that it felt right. So despite the shock on her face, I stepped forward and grabbed her in a hug. I felt her tense up, obviously uncomfortable with embracing one of the Realm Keepers. I didn’t care.
I released my grip and stepped back, looking into her eyes. She looked incredibly awkward, but there was something else there, too: a deep sadness, something I couldn’t quite put my finger on. I didn’t see any trace in her eyes of the jubilation the rest of us obviously felt at surviving.
I decided to let it go. It could wait for another time. I stepped past her and went to the men.
“Will you remove your helmet?” I asked the first one.
He started, clearly surprised, but then he reached up and pulled the gleaming metal from his head. He was older than Cara, though not nearly as old as Greystone, and he had a full beard. His dark brown hair was flecked with grey, and his nose was wide and red.
“What’s your name?” I asked him.
“Barius, my Lady,” he said respectfully, bowing his head.
“I’m Sarah,” I told him. “Thank you for what you did for us today.”
Barius fell to his knee. “It was my duty. I swore an oath.”
I gripped his shoulder plates and pulled him back up. “Not to me, so I’m still grateful. And you can say, ‘you’re welcome’ now.”
Barius looked at Cara nervously. She shrugged. “Very well…you are welcome. My Lady.”
I smiled and went to each of them in turn, asking them to remove their helmets. I learned each of their names. Samuel. Melaine. Nora.
The last knight removed his helmet, and I gasped.
He looked like Kurt Masterson. Exactly like Kurt Masterson. It was uncanny. The same blonde, curly hair. The same bright blue eyes. I noticed, though, that he had a scar on his left cheek that Kurt didn’t have. Other than that, though, they were the same.
And now the knight was looking at me strangely.
“My lady?” he asked.
“Um…your name?” I asked.
He smiled — just like K
urt had smiled at me that morning. “It’s Darren, my lady.”
I nodded, gulping. I looked at the others, wondering if I was the only one who saw this. They were all looking at me like I was crazy, so I guessed they didn’t notice Kurt’s look-alike. Then I realized I should probably be finishing the introductions.
“This is Miles, Blade, Est — um, I mean Raven…?” I said uncertainly. Raven nodded at me with a little smile.
Darren inclined his head at all of them.
Calvin interrupted before I could introduce him, putting a hand over his stomach and bowing low. “Sir Calvin,” he said.
I rolled my eyes before addressing the knights again. “And we are all in your debt.”
As one, the knights knelt down on one knee and bowed their heads. Cara remained on her feet and spoke for them: “There is no debt, Lady Sarah. We have only done our duty.” She and her knights rose again. “But we thank you, nonetheless.” Greystone was looking at me with approval.
“So where do we go from here?” I asked the wizard. “What’s next?”
Rather than reply, he stepped forward and waved a hand across Miles’ face, muttering a word I couldn’t understand. Miles blinked and almost recoiled, but he kept his feet planted. Greystone did the same to Blade, Raven, and Calvin (who grinned and looked excited) before finishing with me.
“What was that?” I asked when he was done.
“A spell of slumber,” he said gravely.
I took a wary step back. “What? You’re knocking us out?”
“Only to rest,” he assured me.
Black mist started to form on the edges of my vision. I saw Blade sway on his feet.
“Wait!” Calvin said. “I’m not tired! I don’t need to sleep! Didn’t you mention something about Dragons earlier?” He rubbed furiously at his eyes with the back of his hand, and his head dipped.
“Why…?” I started to ask, but I forgot the sentence before I could finish it. Suddenly one of the Stonegard was behind me — it was Darren. He caught me as I started to fall and laid me gently to the grass. For the second time that day, I fell into blackness.
There were sounds.
What were they?
Were the creatures breaking through the wall?
I didn’t open my eyes, partly because I was so tired and partly because if the Shadows were coming through, I just didn’t want to see.
Then I realized the sounds weren’t howls or the clatter of weapons and armor. The low hum wasn’t the roar of an army; it was an air conditioner. The insistent chirping wasn’t the sound of birds; it was an electronic beep, like a computer.
What the…?
I opened my eyes.
It was so dark that at first I thought I hadn’t opened them at all. Then I saw green points of light in the blackness, and I knew the room was just too dark to see more. I tried to get up, but something was pulling at my face. I tried reaching up to grab it, but there was something else on my right arm. I felt a lance of pain in my elbow when I tried to move it, and left it still instead. I raised my left hand — nothing stuck to it — and felt at my face.
There was a mask, some kind of plastic tubing coming out of it and running out over the side of the bed. Now that I concentrated, I could hear my labored breathing coming from inside it. I probed more with my fingers and found a tube running to the elbow of my right arm, with a long needle plunged into the skin.
My eyes adjusted more. I was in a big room, and though it was too dark to be sure, I thought the walls were white. The floor was tile, and the blinking green lights I saw were heart rate monitors.
I was in a hospital.
I heard stirring to my left and turned to see Calvin’s face, illuminated only by the green glow of the monitors. His eyes were wide, staring all around. As I scanned the room, I saw six beds, one for each of us: Miles, Blade, Raven and Tess still struggling to wake.
“Where are we?” I mumbled.
BREET, BREET, BREET
Every monitor in the room went crazy at once.
“What is this?” cried Miles from the other side of the room.
“I think we’re back,” I said, still woozy. Slowly, I pulled the rubber mask from my face.
BREET, BREET, BREET
Then my mind cleared as I realized what that might mean. I shot up in bed, looking around at everyone. They were all up now, though Raven looked groggy.
“Don’t say anything to anyone!” I said, surprised at how firm my voice was.
“What?” said Blade in confusion.
“Don’t tell anyone about what happened. Not until we figure it out. You’ll get locked up or something. Just keep your mouths shut.”
To my relief, Calvin nodded. “She’s right. If we start spouting off about alternate universes and magic, they’re gonna put us on every version of Prozac that’s ever been invented.”
“Well then what are we supposed to — ” Raven began.
The door flew open, and she stopped talking abruptly. In rushed two nurses and a doctor, and behind them came our parents.
My mom flew to my side and clutched my arm, tears springing into her eyes and running freely down her face. She grabbed my face, looking into my eyes, then kissed my cheeks over and over again.
“Mom, um…” I said, beginning to get embarrassed. My dad appeared behind her, a little calmer but not much.
“Oh, honey,” my mom managed to get out through her tears. “We’ve been so…oh, my God, sweetie, we didn’t know what was wrong.”
“What happened?” I asked, because it was the only thing I could think of to say. Playing dumb for a minute would give me time to come up with a plan, or a story, or something.
My dad put his hand on my shoulder, gripping it gently but firmly. He looked like he was about to tell me something, but he didn’t want to.
“You fell into a coma, sweetie,” he said gently.
I stared at him. “A coma?” I asked.
“Well, kind of,” my mom said. “The doctors kept calling it a ‘coma-like state.’ Your heart rate and breathing slowed down, and we couldn’t wake you up. I mean, we tried, and we tried, but…”
“Excuse me, ma’am,” said a voice. It was one of the nurses. She brushed my mom aside gently and came to me, wrapping a thick black velcro cloth around my arm. “We’ll need to be checking vitals now that they’re awake.”
“Of course,” my dad said, guiding my mom a couple of feet away from the bed. But neither one of them took their eyes off of me.
I felt terrible, even though it hadn’t been my fault. They looked terrified, like they didn’t know if they were ever going to see me again. I heard Calvin’s parents giving him the same treatment in the bed next to mine.
“Are you feeling okay, Calvin?” his mom asked.
“I’m fine, mom,” Calvin said, rolling his eyes as she squeezed his shoulder. “Seriously. In fact,” he looked over at me and smiled. “I was having the most epic dream.”
“It’s those books,” his dad said, looking at his mother knowingly. “I told you they were warping his mind. You aren’t doing the marijuana, are you, Calvin?”
“What? No, of course not, dad. Jeez.”
I turned away, a little smile on my face. The nurse finished taking my blood pressure, thanked me, and moved away. My parents swooped back in, sitting on either side of me and reaching over for a hug. I held on to both of them, looking over their shoulders at the others.
Miles’ folks were there, his dad looking relieved, his mom looking upset. Apparently she’d heard about him “cheating” on his test. Raven’s parents were there. Her mom was crying, with her face in a pillow. Her dad’s Asian and has always been really reserved, but he just kept stroking her black and pink hair over and over again, looking like he might never stop. Tess’ mother was there, but I didn’t see her dad.
Blade, on the other hand, had no one.
I looked at him lying there, the nurse now taking his blood pressure and checking his eyes with a flashlight. When sh
e was done, he looked around the room at us. All of us, surrounded by our families, and him all alone. When his eyes met mine, he saw me watching him and looked away. He began inspecting his nails. I could almost feel his walls going up and growing thicker.
I squeezed my parents a little tighter, and wondered what was going to happen to all of us.
TO BE CONTINUED IN…
CALVIN
MY NAME IS CALVIN WELLS, and I’m living a double life.
It’s totally. Freaking. Awesome.
My double life is in a different world — a world called Midrealm. Awesome name, right? And right about now I bet you’re backing away slowly, holding your hands up and afraid to make any sudden moves until you can call the men in white coats and have me taken away. I don’t blame you, but I’m totally telling the truth. It’s all real — it, and Chaos.
Nothing’s been the same since we went over, the day we passed out in detention and woke up in a magical copy of Earth. There, an old grey wizard (no, not the one you’re thinking of — I told you, this is real, not some book) told us that we’d been chosen by Destiny to be the Realm Keepers, guarding Earth from Chaos by defending the Free People of Midrealm.
For reasons beyond comprehension, none of the other five were thrilled with this. In fact, they seemed downright annoyed. I mean, I guess I’ve always been a little bit of a geek. Not everyone is as into fantasy and sci-fi as I am. But come on, who hasn’t wanted to be a superhero? And we totally were.
It was actually my idea to start writing down our stories. I wanted each of us to keep a record of the War of the Stones, like a journal for those who would come after. I mean, it wasn’t like we could tell anyone on Earth about Midrealm unless we wanted to be committed. It wasn’t until later that I realized how important those journals were. How vital they’d be if anything ever happened to one of us.
But it wasn’t that way at the beginning. Certainly not the morning after we first went to Midrealm.
We’d come back to Earth to find ourselves in hospital beds at five o’clock in the morning. Apparently we’d all been in comas, and no one could wake us up. My initial guess was that our consciousness had transferred to our bodies in Midrealm, keeping people from waking us up back home.
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