by Jack Geurts
He wriggled upwards and felt Io doing the same. He wasn’t sure how long she could hold her breath. The sand overhead was heavier than expected – Jasper worried that the level of the desert had just continued to rise higher and higher.
The thought hadn’t occurred to him until now. For some reason, he assumed the desert would level off at the rocky outcrop, but now he was thinking it would continue to build until it buried the mudbrick houses. That seemed to make more sense, and he wondered why he hadn’t considered that prior to signing both their death warrants.
He shook his head, feeling the sand shift around him. He felt his breathing reflex start to kick in, his body performing the act of inhaling even though he kept his mouth closed, trying to suck in air even though there was no air to be sucked. He knew that soon he wouldn’t be able to voluntarily hold his breath any more and his body would take over, forcing him to inhale.
Jasper imagined the sand pouring into his lungs, filling his throat, gagging on the dry, grainy substance. He tried to put it from his mind and wriggled desperately upwards, arms pinned to his sides, legs useless. He felt like a worm – blind, deaf and dumb, squirming through the earth without limbs to help him.
His lungs were screaming for air now, and he realised with a sense of crushing hopelessness that he had thoroughly misjudged the situation and his foolishness was going to get him killed.
In a desperate panic, Jasper felt Io’s arm link under his and clamp around it tightly. Then, from somewhere far below, it sounded like, there was a deep but muted boom...
Suddenly, he was shooting upwards as if in some kind of underground elevator. He was being hauled along by his arm – by Io. He didn’t have time to process what was happening before they burst through the surface and shot up a metre or so into the air.
They seemed to hover there for a split second before returning to earth with a soft thud. The fall didn’t hurt, though. Jasper was too busy gulping in air, Io the same. They lay there on their backs, drawing in deep, wheezing breaths, like caught fish on the deck of a boat.
The storm had subsided now and the only sound was a gentle, whistling breeze. Jasper couldn’t open his eyes, the sun was so bright, but he was grateful for it.
Slowly, their breathing calmed and they sat up, taking in the changed world around them.
There were no houses.
There was no ziggurat.
There was no Eridu.
There was only desert, and a cluster of ridges jutting up from the desert floor – the ruins of Eridu, exactly as Jasper and Io had found them before Io turned back the clock. They sat on the sand, staring up at these ridges – the tallest of them where the great temple had stood only moments ago.
Io searched the sky for her feathered friend, heart sinking. Then there was a squawk somewhere behind them and Io turned. Her face brightened in a smile as she saw the hideous creature jerking through the air towards her, coming in to land.
It did so in expected fashion – hitting the ground without slowing enough, legs buckling as it tried to touch down, lurching forward, tumbling end over end and coming to rest in a heap just short of its master.
Dia picked itself up and seemed to sway a little, dizzy from the fall. It shook the sand from its feathers once again and looked up to see Io’s smiling face.
“Dia,” she said. “I am so glad you are okay.”
The Archaeopteryx waddled forward and hopped into her lap, curling up and nuzzling into her stomach. Io laughed and stroked its feathers, and Jasper couldn’t help but smile. Not that the creature had done much to endear itself to him, but it seemed to make Io happy. And for some reason, that made him happy too.
That is, until the creature noticed him.
It rose up, glaring at Jasper in a manner he was used to by now. Then it tilted its head to the side, and Jasper thought that maybe it wasn’t angry, just confused – about what, though, he hadn’t the slightest idea.
Dia hopped down out of Io’s lap and waddled slowly over to him. Not breaking eye contact, it latched onto his shirt with its long, clawed fingers and began to climb up his chest. Jasper froze, unsure of what to do. He looked to Io for guidance, but she only laughed, amused by his panic.
The bird clambered up onto his shoulder and began nosing through his hair with its snout. After a few moments, it snorted with discontent and hopped down again, returning to Io’s lap.
“What the hell was that all about?” Jasper said.
Io laughed again. “He is wondering where your hat is.”
Jasper was wondering that himself. He stared out at the flat desert waste, knowing that the hat was long gone. He remembered the bones in the belly of the dinosaur fossil – something else trapped in a time it did not belong to.
Then he realised that Io had referred to Dia as a ‘he’ and not as an ‘it’. Given the creature’s strange appearance, Jasper hadn’t thought to assign the Archaeopteryx a gender, but he supposed that naturally, it was one or the other.
“How’d you get us out of there?” he said.
She held up her glove. “I shot a blast down to propel us upward. I was not sure if it would work.”
“I think it’s safe to say it did the trick.”
They exchanged a smile, then turned their attention back to the ruins.
“What happened?” he said.
Io looked at her tablet computer, shaking her head. “I do not know. It should not have happened.”
“Did we run out of time?”
“No,” she said. “It does not work that way.”
With a pang of dread, Jasper thought of something. “What about the Flight Pod?”
“It is alright.” Io looked skyward. “I activated the Pod’s hovering mode. Here it comes now.”
Jasper followed her gaze, but saw nothing. He then remembered the Flight Pod was invisible and was glad not to have said it out loud. Loose sand began to blow in their direction as the spaceship descended, then Jasper heard it gently touch down, crunching the sand beneath its metal feet.
A second later, the Pod appeared, discarding its invisible shield. The ramp began to lower.
Jasper got to his feet and offered Io a hand. She considered it a moment, not wanting to be helped but also not wanting to appear ungrateful for the gesture. She lifted Dia off onto the ground, then took Jasper’s hand and he hauled her to her feet.
He pulled a little too hard and she came closer than expected, almost bumping into him. They lingered a moment, eyes locked. Then Io turned and saw Dia watching them, clearly not impressed.
Io smiled and stepped back from Jasper. “Go on, Dia, get in the Pod.”
The bird lingered a moment, then reluctantly turned and waddled off toward the spaceship.
“Sorry,” she said. “Dia is very protective of me.”
“I’ll say.”
They stared at each other a moment longer, than Io broke away.
“We should get going,” she said.
Jasper cleared his throat. “Yeah...of course.”
As they walked, Jasper finally had to ask a question that had been rolling around in his head since the day before. “Hey, uh...how do those gloves work?”
Io seemed mildly surprised by the question. She studied the glove on her hand, as if she hadn’t thought about how it worked in a long time.
Jasper went on. “You can shoot bolts of energy with them, turn back time. I even saw Janus use it to tame that dinosaur. It almost seems like...” Jasper searched for the right words. “...they allow you to channel your thoughts through them.”
It sounded even more ridiculous out loud than it had in his head. But not so ridiculous compared to what he’d learned since finding the saddle. He recalled Janus’ glove on the dinosaur, the creature moving forward as if he had commanded it to do so telepathically.
“You are correct, Jasper,” Io said. “That is indeed how they work. The gloves allow a person to tap into the power of their own mind.”
“They allow you to turn back tim
e?”
“No, that is what this is for.” She indicated the wrist-computer. “We call it a Window.”
“A Window?”
“As in a window to the past, a window to the mind, where we can more clearly see whatever it is we are thinking about. An image, an idea. It is activated by my thoughts, via the glove.”
“Wow.”
“The gloves themselves are fairly common, but as I mentioned before, Windows are reserved for only those select few who can be trusted with them.”
“But...how does it work? Is it, like, telepathy or something?”
“We call it the Mind-link,” she said. “Among many things, it is how I am able to pilot the Flight Pod without controls.”
“You were flying the Pod?”
“Of course I was. What did you think, it was flying itself?”
That was exactly what Jasper thought, but he wasn’t about to admit as much and make himself look even more foolish.
She smiled and went on. “The Flight Pod was designed to be operated by a person’s mind, rather than through the use of physical controls.”
“Seems kind of dangerous,” Jasper said. “What if you blacked out or something?”
Io considered this. “Then controls are not going to be of help in any case, are they?”
Jasper supposed not, but said, “Yeah, but what if I’m in the Pod, too? Do I just go down in flames?”
“Well, for starters, there would not be actual flames. The Pod does not run on oil like you use here. It is powered by the same energy I can fire from the glove as a weapon – something known among my people as Elemental. It is a kind of life force, or...power of the mind. An energy generated by one’s own body. Theoretically, the Pod would respond to your mind if my link to it was severed.”
Jasper’s eyes bulged. “I’d be flying it?”
Io almost laughed at this notion. “As you can imagine, the Pod can only be piloted by one person at a time, and in the event of unconsciousness or death, the Mind-link is cut and the Pod is open to being piloted by another. Provided that person has the proper training, which you most certainly have not.”
Still, it was exciting for Jasper to think about – not only flying a spaceship, but flying it with his mind.
Up ahead, Dia had disappeared inside the Pod and they were almost there themselves when Io suddenly tackled Jasper to the ground, shouting “Look out!”
He didn’t get a chance to ask her what the hell she was doing, because as they fell, a bolt of red Elemental flew overhead at about chest-height. If she didn’t tackle him out of the way, it surely would have hit him. Jasper had seen happened to the falling stone in the temple – he didn’t want to think about what such a blast would do to his body.
Io landed on top of him, already having her arm outstretched, gloved palm facing outwards like a soldier lying low with a rifle. She laid down some suppressing fire and then hurried to get up, dragging Jasper with her. “Come on.”
They made for the Flight Pod’s lowered ramp, but before they could reach it, a figure materialised in front of them. A tall, hooded figure with translucent skin.
Janus.
His gloved palm was glowing red and aimed directly at them. Jasper and Io came to a screeching halt, and he noticed that in Janus’ other hand was a saddle.
The same saddle Jasper had found.
The same saddle Janus had used to ride the dinosaur and kill everyone at the dig site, including his parents.
Jasper’s eyes flared with a sudden rage at the sight of it. Beside him, Io was tensed, her own gloved hand down by her side, glowing blue.
“I wouldn’t if I were you,” said Janus, in a low, deep voice, reading her intentions.
Whether out of fear or tact, Io did nothing. She and Jasper just stood there at glove-point, waiting for Janus to make his move. Janus waited for them to make theirs. He was weary, breathing hard – like he’d just run a marathon to get there.
Dia had apparently heard all the commotion and now came scurrying down the ramp to rescue his master. Io’s eyes widened when she saw her feathered companion, knowing that despite his admirable bravery, an Archaeopteryx was not the ideal dinosaur to have in a combat situation.
Io shook her head almost imperceptibly and Dia stopped. She had been trying to send the signal without Janus noticing, but he did, and turned to see the birdlike creature glaring at him with even more intensity than he had Jasper, if that were possible.
Janus turned back to Io with just the hint of a smile. “Glad to see your taste in friends hasn’t changed, princess.”
Io gritted her teeth and said nothing. Dia hissed.
Janus then turned his attention to Jasper and said, “That’s nothing against you, boy. Or...maybe it is. In any case, I have something for you. A gift.”
He tossed the saddle forward so it landed in the sand between them. “I do apologise if I got any of your kin’s blood on it. That was a messy business, was it not?”
Jasper knew he was being goaded, but wanted to charge at the rider anyway – to somehow dodge around the glove, tackle him to the ground and beat him senseless. To unleash the anger building up inside of him. To exact his revenge.
It didn’t occur to him right then, but later, Jasper would remember that Io had a claim to Janus’ life also. He had killed her brother, after all. That was Callisto’s Window strapped to the back of Janus’ glove, if he understood correctly what had happened.
All three of them stood there as the wind whipped past, teasing the sand – Janus ready to kill them both, Jasper and Io both wanting to kill him, but Io with the only real means of doing so.
It happened in less than a second...
Io ducked, and as Janus shot a red blast at where her head had been, she brought her own hand up and fired back. The blue bolt went straight for his chest, but just before it hit him, Janus vanished. The blast of energy bounced off the hull of the spaceship and dissipated into nothing.
Io cursed in her native tongue as she straightened. At least Jasper thought she cursed – he couldn’t tell for sure – but the exclamation came out the same way his would if he hit his thumb with a hammer.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jasper saw a dark shape appear. Without even turning to confirm what it was, he leapt at Io, tackling her to the ground as she had tackled him...
But he wasn’t quick enough.
There was an explosion of pain in his shoulder as the blast caught him. He hit the ground screaming, while Io bounced back straight away, lifting her arm and firing off several bolts at the place where Janus was only a microsecond ago.
He had teleported again.
This time he was behind them, but Io was ready, and just as he appeared 180 degrees from where he previously stood, she had turned and her glove was already pointed at him. Jasper wasn’t sure if she fired before or after he appeared, but by the time the blast was loosed, he didn’t have time to teleport again.
The blue Elemental struck him in the shoulder in approximately the same position Jasper had been hit and he fell backwards, letting out an agonised yell. Io took advantage of the distraction and hauled Jasper to his feet.
“Come on,” she said. “We have to move.”
He was ready to make a dash for the Flight Pod with her, but then he noticed the saddle lying there in the sand.
For some reason, he couldn’t just leave it there. Even though his shoulder was killing him, even though Janus was sure to bounce back any second – he couldn’t just leave it there. He scrambled back for it.
“No, Jasper...” Io called, but he was already picking it up. It was heavier than he expected, especially since he could only use one hand.
Her eyes went to Janus, who had recovered now and was back on the offensive, staggering forward with his glove raised...
Io rushed back to Jasper, getting in front of him just as Janus fired...
The red Elemental came at her like a fireball, blazing through the air, but Io batted it away with the back of her glo
ved hand like a baseball. He fired a second time, but now Io brought her hand back down in the same fluid motion, swatting the blast into the ground with the palm of her hand, sending up an explosion of sand that showered the both of them.
As she brought her hand back up a second time, she faced the palm to Janus and let loose a blast. She fired another one, then another one. He was already gone, but she kept firing anyway, outward in all directions. She fired back as they ran forward, up the ramp and into the Pod, scooping up her hissing bird as she went.
Before Jasper even had a chance to set the saddle down and belt himself in, before the ramp was even fully up, they were in the air, flying away, retracting the legs as they went. Io turned on the invisibility shield once more, and this time, Jasper experienced less of a stomach drop as he watched the floor disappear from under his feet, but only slightly less.
Far below, what remained of the world’s first city faded into a tiny speck in the desert, and then nothing at all.
PART III
BURIED IN THE EYE OF A DRAGON
CHAPTER TEN
To The East
“You could have gotten us both killed!”
Io was furious. But Jasper was only half-listening as he pulled the collar of his shirt back to inspect his shoulder. Only now did he notice that it was dislocated – the knob-like end of his humerus popped cleanly out of the socket, his entire arm dangling uselessly. He felt a wave of nausea break over him, and was sure his face had gone white as a ghost.
It had been stupid going back for the saddle, he knew that much. Even now, away from Janus and any immediate danger, he still wasn’t sure why he grabbed the thing. It was a poor substitute for the cowboy hat, and it held worse memories for him. Still, it was a memento of sorts.
“Why did you go back for that?” she said.
Jasper stared at the saddle lying at his feet on the invisible floor of the Pod. It was occupied now by a sleeping Archaeopteryx, who didn’t seem to consider it too poor a substitute.
“I don’t know,” he said, sucking in a sharp breath as he knocked his shoulder, gritting his teeth against the pain. “I couldn’t just leave it there.”
