Obscure, Mosaic Chronicles Book Seven

by Pearson, Andrea

  “I agree—we’ll get moving once Lizzie is safe again.”

  Nicole half smiled, reaching up to touch Austin’s beard. “I kind of like this. It makes you look like a mountain man.”

  Austin nuzzled her hand, kissing her palm. “I’ll keep it if you want—I’ll do anything for you.” He turned to her, then cradled her face with his hands. “I can’t bear the thought of ever being separated from you again.” He fell silent for several moments, his eyes searching hers. “Tell me what happened. Start from the beginning. You were taken by the natives?”

  Nicole nodded. “They saved my life. The bird drained a lot of my blood, and I got an infection where it bit me. That’s probably why it took so long for me to heal. Not only was I weak, but my body had to fight the infection while trying to create more blood. I was unconscious and pretty much delirious for a long time. When I finally was conscious for more than a few minutes, I was super exhausted and pretty dysfunctional. It took forever to build the muscles that had atrophied.”

  “Where did the bird bite you?”

  Nicole hesitated, then pulled up her sleeve. He gasped when he saw the deep scar on her forearm. “Nicole, this is horrible.”

  She put the sleeve back in place. “It definitely wasn’t fun to get.” She frowned, thinking over something that had been bothering her. “Why couldn’t Jacob See me anymore?”

  “We think it’s because of the Lorkon tests. Apparently, the Lorkon did something to make it so people who could See things magically wouldn’t be able to find them. Jacob thinks they did that to several of their test subjects, including the natives.”

  “Didn’t you guys search for me? I mean, if you knew the natives had taken me, couldn’t you have gone hunting for them?”

  Austin snorted. “Trust me, I did. I haven’t left this world since you went missing.” He motioned to his face. “Hence the beard. I’ve followed every native I’ve seen. Jacob, Coolidge, Akeno, Azuriah—everyone has helped. Jacob can see the natives’ emotions, but he can’t Time-See them. And they’ve got such a labyrinth of mazes here that it would take a year to search them all. I’ll bet I’ve only gotten through an eighth of them.”

  “I don’t think they even had me in the city,” Nicole said. “Judging by how much walking we did to get here, I was about forty minutes away.”

  Austin looked distracted for a moment and stood. Then he focused his attention back on her. “Do you know which direction?”

  Nicole shook her head. “They turned me around a few times. I had no idea what was going on.” She got to her feet as Austin started down the castle steps. “Where are you going?”

  “Jacob and Akeno will be here soon.”

  Nicole cocked her head. She hadn’t seen a Minya come. “How do you know?”

  Austin pulled an old flip phone out of his pocket. “Coolidge set it up. It’s a simple transmitting device. Jacob still uses his Minya, but when she’s gone searching for honey—which, apparently, she does a lot—he presses a button on his phone and it vibrates mine. The only thing he would have to say to me is that they’re almost here. Unless they’re in an emergency situation, in which case, the phone would vibrate twice for plans aborted. Believe me, we’ve had a lot of time to work out communication methods.”

  “But didn’t you say it would take a couple of hours for them to get here?”

  Austin nodded. “They must have run the entire way.”

  Nicole felt more bubbles rising in her chest. “Then we should run!”

  Austin held her hand and they dashed away from the castle and the tent where Austin had apparently been sleeping. At first, it felt wonderful to move that much after being cooped up for so long. But after only a couple of minutes, Nicole had to slow to a walk—she just hurt too much. She was sure she’d popped the scab off the wound in her thigh because she could feel something warm trickling down her leg. Great.

  But she was about to see Lizzie again! It would be so wonderful. Please be okay, Lizzie, please be okay.

  Nicole and Austin only had to wait ten minutes outside the library before Jacob, Coolidge, Akeno, and Azuriah showed up. Nicole waved at Azuriah, but hugged the other three.

  She ignored the questions on their faces. “Let’s get Lizzie and then we can talk.”

  Everyone agreed, and they headed up the stairs of the library to the fifth floor. Nicole’s friends waited near the banister while she continued toward the corner room. She was shocked at how much damage the fifth floor had received. Charred remains of shelves, books, and chairs were everywhere. A part of her sorrowed over the loss of such valuable antiques, especially the books, but she knew it had to happen. Lizzie’s fire had protected Shonlin.

  The guardian greeted Nicole warmly. Well, warmly for a dead guy. No smile, no expression of happiness, but the peace and calm around him were different. It was as if he accepted her now. She felt as comfortable around him as she would around a close sibling.

  For a moment, Nicole’s thoughts were distracted by her own siblings, and a pang of homesickness struck her in the chest. She missed two of them very much. She pushed the feeling away, not wanting to be distracted right then, and vowed to go visit them once the talismans were all safely stored in Shonlin.

  Nicole stepped through the doorway and rounded the corner to where she’d retrieved the dog and laid Lizzie. The girl was still there—her face ashen, her skin clammy. Still unconscious. Still breathing. Nicole’s shoulders slumped in relief. She hadn’t killed her best friend.

  Nicole looked around for something that would help her carry Lizzie, but found nothing. Without the reserves of strength she’d drawn upon last time, she didn’t know how she was going to get the girl from the room.

  She tried picking her up, but that was nearly impossible. Nicole glanced at her arms. She hadn’t noticed just how scrawny they’d become. She’d lost so much muscle during her stay with the natives.

  Instead, Nicole resorted to dragging Lizzie across the rough stone floor. She winced every time the girl hit a particularly rough section.

  The guardian spoke near Nicole, making her jump. “There is an easier way,” he said.

  Nicole looked at him. “What is it?”

  “Command her to exit. She’ll do so at once. She’s only here because we granted her access. Once that access is revoked, she’ll be forced to leave.”

  Nicole tilted her head. “So, if someone evil were to gain access to Shonlin, we’d only have to command them to leave, and they’d have to do it?”

  The guardian sighed softly, his voice trickling in the breeze around Nicole. “No. If they break through our barriers, there isn’t much we can do to make them leave. It is far easier to willingly grant access than to remove that which has been forcibly taken.”

  “Good to know.” Nicole closed her eyes. “Lizzie, I command you to exit the room.”

  She felt Lizzie’s hand lifting in the air and jumped, shrieking a little. “Why is she floating?”

  “Because she is not in control of her body. She would be forced to walk out if she were.”

  “So instead, she floats. Like the chick in Ghostbusters.”

  The guardian didn’t smile. His closed eyes showed no emotion.

  Nicole sighed. “Got it. Thanks for your help. I’ll see you later.”

  No response, and Nicole followed Lizzie’s floating body from the room.

  Once they passed the threshold to Shonlin, Nicole prepared for her friend to crash down, but she didn’t need to worry. As soon as they’d left the outer reach of Shonlin, Lizzie slowly lowered to the floor. Her eyes began fluttering wildly and she groaned—the poor girl was in pain.

  Nicole didn’t need to call for help—Coolidge, Jacob, and Austin were already there. They rushed forward and picked Lizzie up.

  The group raced to the stairs and down to where Akeno and Azuriah waited. It didn’t take long for Akeno to turn Lizzie into a miniaturized version of herself and to tuck her gently into the Minya container. Nicole opted not to be healed
just yet, since she wasn’t bad off—they had too much to do.

  Once Nicole had made sure Lizzie was comfortable and safe, she turned to her friends. “Now we talk.”

  Chapter Nine

  Jacob and Austin cooked dinner in a set of ruins just outside the library while Nicole told her side of what had happened during the nearly two months she’d been gone. Everyone was shocked she’d survived without hospitalization. She’d really been lucky, and she knew it.

  Once she’d finished, Nicole demanded to know if there were any updates on Keitus.

  “Not yet,” Coolidge said.

  But Azuriah and Jacob glanced at each other. Nicole pointed at them. “You two—what’s going on?”

  Jacob flushed, probably embarrassed from being put on the spot, and lowered the knife he was using to cut potatoes. “As of this morning, Keitus has stopped studying people and is now searching over maps. I think he’s preparing to take a trip.”

  “Where to?”

  “From what it looks like,” Jacob said, chopping up the last potato, “to the talisman on the other planet. I’ve never seen maps of that world, but what he’s looking at perfectly matches what I’ve been Time-Seeing.”

  “I just don’t understand why he hasn’t gone after them already,” Austin murmured, setting a large pot on the flames. “It doesn’t make sense.”

  “It does to me,” Jacob said, dumping the potatoes into the pot. “As soon as he knew I was aware of his plans, he’d have to make sure they were sound—that he would be successful. I’ve really made him miserable in the past.”

  “Even so,” Austin said.

  Jacob scowled, looking away.

  “So, if he’s going after the talisman, that means we need to hurry, right?” Nicole asked.

  Jacob glanced at her and nodded. “I didn’t want to bring it up until Lizzie had been taken care of, but yes, we should get moving. Though, from what I can tell, he’s just starting his initial study of the planet—something I began months ago.”

  “But if I’d been here, we would have gone to get the talisman two months ago,” Nicole said. “We can’t expect it to take Keitus that long to figure everything out.” She reached forward, accepting a piece of buttered bread from Austin. “What did you learn about the other planet?” she asked Jacob.

  He turned to her. “The place is really fascinating. The dirt is loaded with iron, which makes it very red. There are a couple of suns that are close—close enough that if they didn’t have thick clouds that never go away, they’d all most likely be fried up from the rays.”

  Austin glanced at Nicole. “The clouds trap heat, though, so it’s incredibly hot anyway.”

  “But not too hot for humans, I hope?” she asked.

  Jacob’s eyes widened with excitement and he practically bounced to sit on a large stone near her. “Apparently not. There are humans living there already.”

  Nicole blinked. “What? Really? Wow.” She supposed it shouldn’t surprise her by now to hear this, not when she’d already met humans living on many other planets and in other dimensions.

  “And that’s not all of it,” Coolidge said, tossing his crusts and paper plate into the fire. He glanced at her. “We have reason to believe the humans are Aretes.”

  Nicole’s mouth popped open. “I thought Aretes only lived on earth.”

  “Apparently not,” Austin said. He reached over and took her hand, then settled against the wall behind them. “And the awful part—they’re slaves.”

  “That’s horrible.”

  He nodded. “Even worse than that is who is holding them as slaves.”

  Nicole hesitated at the expression on Austin’s face. “Who is it?”

  “Agarchs.”

  Nicole’s mouth immediately went dry. She hadn’t heard that word in so long—not since her very first month of college. “Are you sure?”

  “If what Jacob is describing from his visions is correct, then yes. Same mannerisms, same looks, same characteristics, all of it.”

  “Great.” Nicole slumped against the ruins. “What now?” She tilted her head, looking at Jacob. “Can’t you go back in the past and follow the talismans from their creation on through to where they’re located now? I thought that was something you could do.”

  “Normally, yes, but this time, I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  Azuriah spoke for the first time. “Onyev must have made it so magical sight couldn’t follow them. It would make sense, given their incredible power, that the only people he would be comfortable with knowing their exact location would be guardians of Shonlin.”

  Nicole nodded. “As great as that is for protecting the talismans, it sure doesn’t help us . . . well, protect them.”

  “No, it doesn’t,” Coolidge said. He ran his hand through his hair, then motioned to Jacob. “Finish telling her about the world so we can make plans.”

  “Okay,” Jacob said. “There isn’t any conventional food. From what I can tell, the humans are fed a type of mud-and-bug mixture. A lot of them are malnourished.”

  Coolidge grunted. “We believe the Agarchs could feed the humans better, but they’re inclined to keep them physically weak for a reason.”

  “What reason is that?” Nicole asked. “If the Aretes are slaves, what good would it do to keep them weak? Wouldn’t the Agarchs want to maximize their efforts as much as possible?”

  Coolidge leaned forward, resting his elbows on his hands. “The humans aren’t there to perform physical labor.”

  Nicole frowned, knowing what he was saying. “So, if they’re being used for their Arete powers, why don’t they just use that magic to escape?”

  Coolidge shook his head. “They might not know they can. They’re isolated from each other, and we believe none of them truly understand what they are.”

  Nicole fell silent for a moment. She couldn’t fathom that sort of existence. It would be horrible. “And Jacob learned all this by watching them?”

  Jacob nodded. “Both magically and in person. I keyed there a few times—observed from a distance. We didn’t have a lot else to keep our attention. You were gone for a long time.”

  “So, if the people are separated and don’t know what they are . . .” Nicole wasn’t sure where she was going. She rubbed her eyes. “I wish there was something we could do to help them.”

  “There is,” Coolidge said. “Get the talisman and hide it from Keitus because rest assured, once Keitus has his hands on all the talismans, he’ll enslave everyone.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  “What about Lizzie?” Jacob asked.

  Nicole glanced at him. “You’re sure she’s going to heal?”

  He nodded.

  “And she’s absolutely safe in that container?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Then let’s get her to Maivoryl castle and have your parents watch over her.” Nicole bit her lips. “You all know how much I care for Lizzie, but there’s nothing I can do for her right now. And judging by how long it took her to heal last time, it’ll probably be days before she wakes up. We can’t afford to sit around waiting.”

  She stood. “Let’s go now.”

  Nicole was almost surprised when everyone jumped to pack up their things. Even Azuriah and Coolidge were quick to do as she said. But maybe it was because they were antsy to get going—get on the move, finish this quest. They’d had to wait as much as she had—even more, since she’d been out of it for so much of her stay with the natives.

  Early, Jacob’s Minya, delivered a message to the castle. Dmitri and Arien sent a message immediately, wanting their son to bring everyone to the castle to check in.

  A sudden depression crossed over Nicole. Her world was so small. The only people who cared about why she’d been gone so long were with her. Outside of this small group, there weren’t many who’d know she’d been gone nearly two months, and if they did, they wouldn’t worry enough to call.

  She pushed her melancholy feelings aside, realizin
g they’d only make her lose her focus right now.

  She accepted some Kaede sap-soaked rags from Azuriah, which she bound to her thigh inside her jeans. That would help keep the wound from getting worse until she could sleep. She hoped the opportunity to sleep would come soon—after the excitement of the day, she definitely needed it.

  Nicole visited Shonlin, wanting to make sure the path to the talisman was fresh in her mind, then she and the others ran—she with some difficulty—the whole way to the door Jacob would use to key them to the castle.

  Upon arriving in Maivoryl City, Nicole was grateful to see that Dmitri and Arien had gathered the necessities she and the others would need for their trip. Several packs were ready when they got there.

  Arien gave Nicole a hug, wishing her luck, and Dmitri shook her hand, welcoming her back. Then she and the others hefted their packs and said goodbye.

  It was finally time to get the next talisman.

  ***

  Nicole watched as Jacob pulled the key from his pocket and slid it into the lock in the throne room door. “Oh, better make sure nothing is going on where we’re keying.” His eyes glazed over as he Time-Saw to what Nicole was calling “the iron world.”

  “So, they breathe oxygen there?” Nicole asked while waiting. “Last time we went, everyone was paranoid our brains would explode if we stepped through the door.”

  “Slight exaggeration,” Austin said, squeezing her hand.

  She sent him a smile. “But pretty close. We might have already gotten the talisman if it weren’t for everyone—meaning you—freaking out.”

  He shrugged. “It’s better to know what’s coming.”

  “Definitely.”

  Jacob returned from Time-Seeing. “All good.” He hesitated. “Though, Nicole needs to know that there aren’t many doors on this planet—at least, not ones that will work with the key. So we may be doing a lot of walking. I hope you’re okay with that.”

  Nicole sighed. She would love to be done with long treks on foot, but quick and painless trips didn’t seem to be her lot in life. Too bad.