The Invisible Tower

by Nils Johnson-Shelton

  Artie was happy to hear Kay sound like her old self, but was also completely exhausted. He slumped in his seat. He’d just scared off a dragon so big it could have nested on a football field. His eyes burned and his head hurt. But Artie had to agree. “Yeah, it was pretty awesome, wasn’t it, Sir Kay?”

  “Let’s get back to shore,” Thumb said as he wrangled Vorpal, who was still raring for a fight, into the bottom of the canoe. “I think we’ve had enough excitement for today. Kay, help me paddle. Artie can rest.”

  Kay felt that her brother was totally whipped. “Good idea, Tommy. Take a load off, Art. We’ll get you home.”

  “Okay. Thanks, guys.”

  They paddled, and the sun warmed their backs. After a while the trees around the Lake shook to life again, and the passenger pigeons, free of predators, took back to the sky like a living, moving confetti storm.

  The flock was so huge that, once it got going, it looked as if it had no beginning, and no end.

  13

  HOW THE STORM WAS LIKE A GIANT BLINDLY STAMPING HIS FEET ACROSS THE COUNTRYSIDE

  They pulled back to shore, stowed the canoe, and retraced the trail they’d bushwhacked around the Lake. Their minds raced, so they didn’t talk much until they got back onto the road.

  Breaking their silence, Kay asked, “So what’s the deal, Tommy—the pigeons, the giant bird, the chestnut tree—those are all things that are more or less extinct on our side, right?”

  Thumb said, “That’s right, Kay. As Merlin said, over the centuries some species have sought refuge here as they went extinct over there.”

  “Does that mean there’s dinosaurs and stuff over here?” Kay wondered.

  “No, no, my dear. It was a major extinction event that killed the dinosaurs. The same extinction event killed many here as well. The worlds share the earth, remember; it’s just that the earth is more layered and subtle in its presentation of reality than most believe it to be.”

  “What about dragons?” Artie asked as they walked. “Did they used to live on our side?”

  Thumb raised his eyebrows and said, “Dragons are a different matter. They only come from here. Here they are very real. There, they live only in the imagination.”

  Artie frowned and said to himself, “Man, that’s kind of how I feel right now. Both real and not so real…”

  A roll of thunder gurgled behind them. They stopped momentarily and saw a dark, low cloud gathering in the distance. They could just make out the moongate down the road.

  As they walked on, an idea popped into Kay’s head. She asked, “So if things leave there and come here, does that mean that sometimes people who go missing over there end up here?”

  Thumb said simply, “Not often, but it has happened. Why do you ask?”

  “Oh, no reason. Just trying to get a handle on things.”

  Thumb glanced sidelong at Kay. He could tell that was not the real reason Kay was so curious. They carried on toward the portal.

  But Artie knew full well why Kay had asked. It was because of her mom. He knew that behind all the wisecracks and one-liners, Kay was really a big softie when it came to her mom. In fact, Artie had begun to suspect that all the wisecracks and one-liners were compensating for the fact that Kay was kind of crushed by her lack of a mother. Needless to say, this made Artie sad. What made him even sadder was the knowledge that he had something to do with her flying the coop. Artie was starting to feel like he wanted to know what had happened to Kay’s mom almost as badly as Kay wanted to, which on top of everything else (knowing a wizard, being a genetically engineered king, owning the coolest sword ever) was also a new feeling.

  It was all a part of being the new Artie Kingfisher, he figured.

  Speaking of the new Artie Kingfisher, he had a strong, inexplicable urge to get into a sword fight. As they reached the moongate, he said pointedly, “Tom, will you fight me?”

  Shocked, Thumb asked, “Excuse me, lad?”

  “Will you fight me? You know how to use that thing, right?” Artie pointed at the Welsh wakizashi.

  “Of course I do. I am a master of the bladed arts.”

  “Then let’s do it.”

  Kay interrupted, “Artie, have you gone off your rocker?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. Excalibur did something to me. No, Excalibur did a lot of things to me. I need to see if some of them work.”

  “What do you mean?” Kay asked.

  Artie looked around. He said, “I mean, like—you see those plants over there? I know all of them. That’s witch hazel, those are Dutchman’s-breeches, and that’s red trillium. That bright orange one only grows here. It’s called adder’s nest. If you boil its roots in sheep’s milk, you get a really nasty poison.”

  “Wow,” both Kay and Thumb said.

  Artie held up Excalibur. “See these words?” Kay leaned in to look at the blade’s inscriptions. “They’re Latin, and I can read them. Tolle me means ‘Take me up,’ Iacta me means ‘Cast me away.’”

  Kay leaned back. “Far out, Your Kingliness.”

  “On top of all this, I also think I know how to fight, like, pretty well. With a sword. So, Tom? Wanna spar a little?”

  The storm cloud grumbled again. Thumb looked to the sky as he said, “I’m not sure our wizard would approve, lad. Besides, I’m a little concerned by this storm.”

  On cue, a deafening crack of thunder rode its arc of lightning to the ground, splitting a nearby pine tree to its roots. Kay jumped. Vorpal reared and turned two quick circles, looking for something to strike at.

  They could tell that it would be pouring in a matter of minutes.

  “We have to go. I really think we have to go now, lad!” Thumb said with sudden urgency.

  Artie said, “You’re right. Let’s get out of here.”

  They quickly stepped through the pale light of the moongate, and it frittered away like a dying sparkler as they found themselves back in the woods of Peebles, Ohio.

  Where the wind was going crazy! Leaves and twigs and dirt swirled in the air, and it was much colder than when they’d left.

  Lance clutched his ridiculous Robin Hood hat with one hand while holding on for dear life to a sturdy tree with the other. “Glad to see you!” he screamed hoarsely. “We need to get going! This storm came from nowhere!”

  Artie picked up Vorpal and Thumb, who had shrunk back down. He slid Excalibur under his belt and grabbed Kay’s hand. Thumb sounded scared as he yelled, “Follow Lance!”

  They did.

  They emerged from the woods to a terrible sight. Artie couldn’t be sure because he’d only ever seen them on the Discovery Channel and YouTube, but he had a sinking feeling that they were about to be hit by a tornado.

  Kynder was on the far side of the serpent’s head. His clothes were practically being torn off by the wind. He screamed for Artie and Kay.

  “Dad, over here!” Artie and Kay yelled.

  Kynder saw them and started to move toward them.

  “Stay there, we’re coming,” urged Lance, holding up his hand.

  Kynder grabbed a tree. Suddenly he looked more confused than afraid.

  Because here, duckwalking against the tempest, came a sight his eyes couldn’t understand. His children were with a ridiculously attired young man holding a compound bow who was trying to protect them from the storm, which was pretty nice of him. Artie and Kay looked normal enough except that they—were they both carrying swords?

  Yes. They were both carrying swords.

  Plus, Artie seemed to be carrying a rabbit.

  Thankfully, Kynder couldn’t make out Thumb. If he had, he would have passed out on the spot.

  Artie and Kay smiled at Kynder in spite of the howling wind, and Kay held up Cleomede in salute. When they reached him, Kay gave her dad a short but strong hug.

  Then something in the air changed. A sound like a freight train bearing down on them came from their right.

  They looked. A funnel cloud had touched down in the field across the little ri
ver.

  “We have to go now!” screamed Lance.

  They took off for the parking lot, thinking they were about to pull a Dorothy-and-Toto.

  As they ran, Kynder yelled, “Who is this kid? Why do you two have swords?”

  “Not now, Kynder!” Artie and Kay both implored.

  The noise got worse, changing from a low rumble to a medium-high pitch. They heard a series of knee-knocking cracks. Artie glanced at the funnel, an awesome black scar joining earth and sky, and saw it lifting and eating whole trees from the ground.

  They managed to reach the parking lot in once piece. There was Lance’s cab, and next to it was Kynder’s car—an imported 2007 turbocharged Land Rover Defender—which happened to be the perfect vehicle for dodging tornados.

  They threw the doors open. Artie and Kay chucked their stuff into the cargo area and climbed in with Vorpal and Thumb. As Kynder moved to the driver’s side, Lance screamed, “Let me drive!”

  “What? I don’t even know you!”

  “Name’s Victor X. Lance. It’s nothing personal, sir, but I was a Humvee driver in Iraq and I personally guarantee that if you let me operate your vehicle, nothing bad will happen to you or your kids!”

  Kynder believed him. He traded Lance the keys for the bow and arrows and climbed into the passenger seat. While Lance ran around to hop behind the wheel, Kynder passed Lance’s weapons to the kids, who fed them into the back with the swords.

  It was hardly any quieter inside the car, but at least they didn’t have to yell at the top of their lungs. Lance said, “Strap in, muchachos, I’m gonna take y’all for a ride!”

  He fired up the car, threw it in reverse, and took off. They peeled toward the exit, and right before reaching the gate, Lance executed a perfect J-turn. Everyone erupted in hoots and hollers. Lance laughed heartily and took off down the road.

  For a few moments the storm was at their back and its awful howl got quieter. But then, like a giant blindly stamping his foot across the countryside, a funnel touched down in front of them about a quarter mile away.

  Lance slammed the brakes, and everyone was thrown forward.

  The car idled eagerly.

  Thumb, who’d moved up to Artie’s shoulder, exclaimed, “Heavens. That is not good, lad.”

  Kynder whipped around. “Who said that?” It was just too much. Kynder finally saw Thumb, and he finally fainted.

  Kay reached for his shoulders and tried to shake him awake. Lance, checking Kynder with a hand to his neck, said, “He’ll be fine, Kay. His pulse is strong.” His voice was so calm that she couldn’t help but sit back.

  Artie asked, “What’s not good, Tom?”

  Thumb said, “The thing with tornadoes is that sometimes they’re like a tear betwixt the worlds, which means that while they are occurring here, they might have some manifestation there as well.”

  The tornado in front of them milled around the road like it was looking for something.

  “What are you getting at, Tommy?” breathed Kay.

  “That perhaps this particular one is—”

  “Being controlled by something over there,” finished

  Artie.

  “Quite right, lad,” Thumb admitted.

  “Or someone,” added Kay.

  “Quite right, lass.”

  Lance barked, “We’ll have to go back the way we came, then.” He threw the transmission into reverse and executed another gut-wrenching turn. But as the car spun around, another funnel smashed into the road, even closer than the other.

  Now they had two tornadoes to deal with. They were caught.

  Thumb demanded, “Kay, can you reach Kynder’s phone?”

  She answered by leaning forward and fishing in Kynder’s pocket, coming up with his cell phone. She handed it to Artie.

  Lance asked, “You calling the old man, Tiny?”

  “Correct.”

  “I’ll buy you some time then,” Lance said. On their left was a large soybean field. “Hold on!” Lance put it back in gear, crashed onto the shoulder, and took off across the field.

  With Artie’s help, Thumb dialed Merlin. Artie held the phone on the backseat and Thumb, once connected, had to move his body across the phone in order to hear and then talk.

  Thumb’s side of the conversation went like this: “Yes, that’s right. You see it then? Two, possibly three of them. Pretty big, yes. No, I can’t see much rain. No lightning. Yes, I can keep it open. How far? Got it. Got it. Okay. Um, north I think. There should be a state road not far. Yes, yes he did. We also have an Otherworld phone. Okay, I’ll tell the boy.”

  He scrambled up Artie and perched himself on his shoulder, leaving the phone connected.

  The way across the field was incredibly bumpy.

  Artie reached to turn off the phone when Thumb yelped, “Don’t touch it!” He took a breath and explained, “We need to leave the phone on so he can pinpoint our position. He’s going to run some interference. Whoever is doing this in the Otherworld doesn’t have a very good picture of where we are exactly. If we can put enough distance between the crossover point and us, then we’ll be safe. They won’t be able to see us at all if we can get about five miles distant. Can you make that happen, Mr. Lance?”

  “No problemo.” He ripped the wheel, and they turned due west, spraying soybean debris and dirt in their wake.

  The larger funnel was at their back. The other one, which was no wimp, was on their left and gaining.

  Thumb said, “Artie, you need to call Bercilak.”

  “What?”

  A flash of blue lightning broke to their left between them and the funnel. It splintered into a thousand veins then fizzled out.

  “Whoa!” Kay said.

  Thumb clarified: “On the Otherworld phone, Artie. You need to call him and tell him to open the gate!”

  “The gate?” Artie asked.

  The funnel on their left jumped a few hundred feet in their direction. The car banked violently toward it, but Lance caught it and swerved away. “We’ve made it two miles, Tom!”

  “Excellent!” the little man yelled.

  More electricity crackled around them. It was like they were traveling inside a cage of lightning.

  Artie asked, “This lightning—it’s from Merlin?”

  “That’s right, lad. It can’t hurt us,” Thumb said impatiently. “Call the green one! Do you still have the number?”

  “Yeah.” Artie fished in his pocket and felt the scrap of paper.

  The funnel off to their left suddenly disappeared. The electrical storm surged around them, lighting the inside of the car in a thousand points of light. They could see a paved road through a thin line of trees about a mile off.

  Then, boom! A twister crashed down to their right. Lance whipped the wheel hard to the left, and for a moment they were airborne.

  Artie’s face was pressed against the window, and he couldn’t help but look outside. Everything there was gray and green and black. It was terrifying.

  But then he saw something even more terrifying, and his body went cold. Inside the twister was the image of a person shrouded in purple and black and reaching out for the car. The face was obscured by the violence of the storm, but he could see its pointed, pale chin, and its gaping mouth. He felt its desire and its power. It reached and reached and reached…

  The lightning surged and the form recoiled. The car’s wheels hit the ground and dug hard as they vaulted forward. The Otherworld phone was tossed into the backseat, right at Artie’s feet.

  “Call him, lad! Open the gate!”

  Artie willed himself to forget the face in the tornado and grabbed the clunky phone. He dialed the number on the note. The earpiece made an intermittent clicking sound, like a cricket warming up its legs. Artie assumed this was its ring.

  Thumb asked, “Is he answering?”

  “Not yet.”

  “How far, Mr. Lance?” Thumb barked.

  “One more mile!”

  A crackly voice finally came ov
er the other end of the phone. “Hello, good sir. I’m glad you found—”

  “Not now, Bercilak! Open the gate!”

  “The gate?” He paused then blurted, “So soon? Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I’m sure! If you don’t, we’re going to get eaten by a—”

  And then it was there, with a sonic boom that crushed the air around them, stealing their very breath. The lightning disappeared, along with no small amount of Artie’s courage.

  “Holy smokes,” Kay yelped.

  The twister churned in front of them. The hood of the car flew open and they lifted into the air, front wheels first, and started to spin like a top. Artie kept his eyes shut as he pressed the phone to his ear and screamed, “Open the gate! Open the gate! Open the gate!”

  He could only hear snippets on the other end: “I don’t—sir—are you—what.”

  Then there was a huge crash that shook their backs and legs. It took a few moments for them to realize that it was quiet, and that they were still.

  They opened their eyes. The hood of the car had closed again, and they found themselves looking out the windshield—miraculously not cracked—at the sky. And there, far above them, was the diminishing form of a tornado, viewed from below, ruptured by blue lightning.

  The car sat in the field on its backside, teetering on the spare tire.

  Thumb asked, “Is everyone okay?”

  Artie, Kay, and Lance took turns saying yes.

  Artie heard Bercilak faintly over the phone. He pressed it to his ear. “Sir, are you all right?”

  “I think so, Bercilak. Whatever you did, it worked.”

  “Thank the leaves! That sounded quite harrowing, whatever it was.”

  “It was.” Artie was still in shock. “What did you do?”

  “Why, I opened the gate.”

  “The gate to what?”

  “The gate at the back of your court-in-exile, of course. Next time you are here, you will be welcomed home properly!” Bercilak sounded triumphant. Before Artie could say anything else, their connection broke off.

  Exhausted, he let the phone fall from his ear.

  Artie looked at his sister. She raised her eyebrows and smiled weakly. Thumb, who’d fallen into Artie’s shirt, was patting him on the chest. Lance let out a primal “Whoo-hoo!” They started to chuckle, which swelled into laughter, and after twenty seconds of this they realized that Kynder was laughing too.