“Aren’t you afraid of getting killed?”
His face crumbled. “I died long ago when my family disappeared. There is no worse death for me now.”
Getting stolen away to the Lost Realm was better than the Arrow Realm. Being bait would be a way worse fate.
“We’ve got to stop them,” I said, slapping my palm on my slab. “Get others to help. People from here or from Earth like those Takers. Why don’t you do that?”
“We need a leader to rally us.”
“Well, what the heck do you think you could be?” I stood up and paced along the trickling walls, unable to contain my anger at this place, these people.
“We need the Oracle.”
I turned on him. “Why wait for him? He’s just an excuse. I mean, kids are dying!”
Leandro stood and put a hand on my shoulder, squeezing tight. “My mission has been to find my family. I’ve helped mortals along the way, but I am just one soldier.”
I shook his hand away. “Well, maybe you need a new mission. A bigger one, to save more than just your family.”
He gripped both my shoulders this time, and his nose pressed down against mine. “You don’t know our world or me. It’s easy for you to judge, boy.”
“I don’t want to know your world,” I said, slumping in his grasp as my anger faded. His did too, for he let me go, a sorrowful expression on his face.
“What’s going to happen here now?” I said.
“Change is coming.” He frowned, shoving his long locks back, and his thickest white streak glowed in the dim light like a beacon. “Lost Realm folk are just peasants. They fear Zeus, as well as Apollo and Hekate, and hide in their cottages, desperate for the new world their leaders have promised. To many, stealing mortals as a resource is all they’ve ever known. The Lost Realm may have risen out of total darkness on the sweat of mortals, but they live in a worse kind of darkness.”
“What’s that?”
“The darkness inside themselves.”
“How do you change that?”
“Through hope, Joshua.”
Chapter Eighteen
My brain burst with fantastical things, and the mysterious crude cave drawings caught my attention. Figures. Animals. Buildings. “What are these pictures?”
Leandro traced the black and red lines that swirled and looped. “Primitive drawings from ages ago.”
In his tracing I saw figures walking through a giant square. “Is that—”
“A Lightning Gate. Yes. Each realm has one. It’s a public way to travel between lands, and to Earth. For those with secret agendas, traveling the back roads is preferable, although more dangerous.”
“Are those people from Earth?” I said, pointing at the figures.
“Could be. Our world has been plundering Earth for its own needs for a long time.”
To the left of the gate was a woman in a robe. Her hand was outstretched and something shot out of her fingers. “Hey, that can’t be Hekate, can it?”
He nodded. “It may be her.”
“How?”
“There are rumors that she carries the ancient power of immortality. She feeds on fear and may be an evil that’s been around a long time.”
A thought overcame me. “Leandro, if she’s an evil immortal Ancient One, maybe a good immortal Ancient One also survived?”
“To thwart her?”
I nodded.
“You have a hopeful heart.” He smiled at me. “But enough wallowing in our wonderings. Let’s wake the others. It’s time we moved on. We have a friend of yours to rescue.”
“What if it’s too late?”
Leandro placed his hand on my shoulder. His sturdy fingers warmed me. “We won’t let it be.”
I suddenly didn’t want to leave our cold sanctuary. It was the one safe place in this dark land.
***
Charlie and Sam stirred with my shaking. They woke up, bags under their eyes reflecting the ones I probably carried as well. Our adventure was running us ragged, but Leandro paced in front of us, full of found energy. He wasn’t a man used to waiting around. He pressed energy bars in our hands and told us to eat and drink quickly.
“Leandro, what are you going do if you ever find your family?” I said, swigging from Sam’s canteen.
He stopped pacing with my question. “I’ll take them with me to Earth to make a new life, a safe life.”
“And if you can’t ever find them?”
“That thought has nearly driven me mad at times.”
“But even if you do find your family, how are you going to take them to Earth?” Charlie said, plucking his teeth with a twig from his pocket.
“I have a special device,” Leandro said.
“A Lightning Gate key,” Sam guessed.
Leandro raised an eyebrow at him. “Yes.”
“To use on the gate and get home?” Please let it be true.
“Yes.”
Charlie frowned. “So let’s go home! What are we waiting for? And why didn’t you tell us you already had a key when Prince-man mentioned needing one?” He pulled his twig out of his teeth and pointed it accusingly at Leandro, who stepped toward him with a fierce look. Charlie dropped the stick and moved his lips as if trying to form words, but then coughed twice and hung his head.
“I don’t have the codes to get to Earth, only to travel between realms,” Leandro said, confirming what Sam had said earlier. “And I didn’t know you boys well enough to trust you.” Leandro gave me a knowing look. “You may have stolen it.”
“Do you trust us now?” Sam said.
Even though he had saved us—even though I felt his trustworthiness—he was still a man with secrets. And I was quickly learning the power of knowing who and when to trust.
“Trust is earned,” he said, still staring at me, and I was thankful once again for the low light that hid my burning cheeks.
“We need to earn it from you, too,” I dared to say.
His brows pulled in, and he spoke in a flat voice. “I saved your life. I think you have.”
“Show us the gate key,” Sam said.
Leandro pulled his satchel from under his cloak and lifted out a flat square that gleamed bronze. He set it on a slab nearby and pushed at its flat surface. In an instant, the paper-thin sheet popped up into a wooden cube the size of a tissue box. Gold sparkles moved through it. In the gold flickered colored squares of rubies and emeralds like a sun in the dark cave.
“Leandro told me he’s not a Child Collector,” I said, confused. “And, Sam, you told us only a Child Collector carries a Lightning Gate key.”
Sam flashed Leandro a sharp look but didn’t speak.
“That’s true,” Leandro agreed. “Each Child Collector from every Nostos land has a gate key and a scroll of all the codes to travel between all lands and Earth. Only Zeus has the original code scroll to re-create the scrolls from. It’s guarded well.”
The golden box shimmered and pulsed. “How did you get this key?” I said.
“I broke into the house of a Child Collector in another land and stole it,” Leandro said.
“How did you get away with it?”
Leandro finally looked away from the Lightning Gate key to stare at me. “I slit his throat. But not before he gave me this.” He traced the scar on his face. Charlie gasped.
Leandro held my gaze, challenging me to judge him as a thick gob stuck in my throat. It burned going down, carrying my fear with it. I hoped he never needed something from me that I wouldn’t give him. “So this is how you move between these lands? By pretending to be a Child Collector?”
“Yes. It’s a good cover and better than taking the back roads, which I do only when necessary. I’ve been attacked far too many times to make it a permanent way of travel.”
“Didn’t you steal the codes too? Why do you need us?” I said.
“The code set was damaged in my fight with the Child Collector, and the Earth cod
e was destroyed. I’ve been attempting to steal a new set of codes for some time.” Leandro held the box out toward me. “Touch it, Joshua. See how the power feels.”
I pressed ever so slightly on the golden box. Heat pierced my fingertips, but it didn’t burn. Tiny writing wrapped around the edge of the box. Leandro read it. “For whoso travels with the power of my lightning, must bow in my honor or face banishment and the labors of arduous journeys to come.” He paused then said, “It’s signed by Zeus, king of the gods.”
The power of Zeus filled me, but I pulled my fingers back.
“Power. Like in you, Joshua.” Leandro flattened the box, and slid it away. The gold disappeared. “Time to go, boys.”
And with that, powered by strange food, sleep, and a sliver of hope, we went out again into this other world where the misty blue sun rose on another new day.
Chapter Nineteen
We were determined to keep away from the main village of the Lost Realm and trotted in single file through the thick woods. The trees pressed up against me. Their branches snagged my clothes and scratched my hands, blood oozing from tiny cuts. I wiped it away and focused on Leandro’s back ahead of us.
The never-ending quiet consumed me. It was more quiet than even the mountain where Bo Chez took me camping a few times. Even in that peaceful place eagles shrieked, hikers chatted on the trails, music floated to our campsite, chainsaws buzzed cutting wood, and campers came and went on vacation in their cars. Here, no animals chattered or birds sang. Here, the quiet was dead.
Leandro stopped suddenly and put up his hand, holding us off in silence while he scanned the area. He pointed, and we followed his finger to see a cottage, camouflaged amongst the trees. Smoke drifted from its chimney. He motioned us to crouch down behind a bush.
Humming burst through the silence as a woman came out of a door on the side with her back to us. She carried a basket with lumps of white to a canopy, and began hanging up clothes on a line under it, her dark blond hair falling in waves down her back over a long aproned dress. She tapped a foot to her song that filled the air with merry cheer in contrast with the gloomy land she lived in. Leandro drew in a sharp breath. He stood up. What was he doing?
Sam, Charlie, and I shrugged at one another. My calves cramped up, but I held my position, breathing shallow.
“Could it be?” Leandro whispered.
As if she heard him, the woman stopped her work and turned to the side. My neck stiffened, and my eyes hurt to stare at her without blinking. Don’t see us! Leandro’s shoulders fell and he squatted down again.
“It’s not her,” he said.
“Who?” I whispered.
“My wife. It’s been so long. I thought I would know her the moment I saw her again. I don’t want to forget what she looks like.”
I didn’t know what to say, and Sam and Charlie didn’t either as they remained silent. Leandro’s task of finding his family weighed heavy in the air.
We waited until she went back inside and then we crept away from the cottage. None of us spoke for quite some time until we stopped for a drink at a tiny burbling spring and Leandro and Sam filled up their water containers.
“Who was your wife, Leandro?” I said as we continued on and navigated around a tight cluster of trees.
He didn’t answer at first then said quietly, “She was a mortal in the adult camp, having been taken from Earth as a child, and held as our captive. But we fell in love and married ourselves in secret.” He paused and sighed. “Her name was DeeDee.”
“What happened to her?”
“She was taken away, along with our baby son, as punishment for my involvement with a mortal.”
“Where could they be?”
“I don’t know. I deserted my post to travel from land to land to find them.”
He was so determined. With danger at every turn, how long could I continue searching for Finn?
“What’s your son’s name?” I said.
Leandro slowed and then stopped, looking up into the purple sky. Charlie took the stop as a sign to throw himself down on the ground, and I was thrilled for another break.
“Evander,” Leandro finally said. “He had hair so blond it was almost white and a birthmark on his forearm like a flame, the noble ancestral mark of the hunters of Arrow Realm.” He turned and looked at my arm as if expecting that birthmark to appear, at my hair as if my boring dirty blond would suddenly bleach white. “He would be a year or so older than you.”
He pulled a miniature bow from his satchel a third of the size of his own bow.
“I made this for my son before he was born,” Leandro said, running his fingers over its polished arcs. “I had hoped to give it to him when I found him.” He slid the bow away.
I clenched my jaw, biting my lip by accident. Blood and pain welled. What if I couldn’t find Finn, like Leandro couldn’t find his son? Failure was not an option, or staying here for years and never seeing my friend again, fighting for survival, or forgetting what Finn looked like—and Bo Chez.
Leandro said no more, and we took off once again with me in front, leading the way as if I knew where to go.
***
It wasn’t long before the delicious smells of fresh baked bread, roasting meat, and gooey desserts filled my nose. A crooked, black building stuck out from the mist and smoke sputtered thick at the top of its several chimneys. We’d reached the bakehouse.
I looked at Sam. “How are we going to get in there and search for Finn?”
“I know where the hidden tunnel entrance is,” Sam said.
“I’m going with you.”
Sam cocked his head as if wondering if that was such a good idea then he said, “This way.”
“Wait, what if we’re seen?” I said.
“I’m the king’s son. No one questions me. The servants may not know I’m wanted yet. They certainly won’t know you; and besides, the boys and girls working in the bakehouse pit are half awake, cooking the king’s breakfast. They deliver it by tunnel to the castle on powered carts.”
Carts we power.
“We’ll wait here for you,” Leandro said.
Sam pointed. “The old tunnel entrance is just past that rock.”
Charlie seemed unsure about us leaving him with Leandro. “How are we going to know if anything’s wrong, Prince-man?”
“You’ll know if something goes wrong,” Sam said. “An alarm will sound.”
“I’ll call the kernitians to come fly us out of here,” Leandro said. “Let’s hope they’ll help again.”
“Come back in one piece, please, mon ami?” Charlie looked at me and sagged his shoulders, shifting about on his feet.
I nodded, and then Sam bent down and moved some brush aside. Beneath it was a rusty round cover that blended into the earth. Sam pulled it up by a hook. Rungs set into the side of the circular shaft led down into blackness. Sam climbed down and I followed into the stuffy dark, peering one last time up from the black hole. Leandro stood expressionless, watching.
“Be safe,” Charlie called. “Au revoir.”
***
The blue glow of the lightning orb provided enough light for us to run through the cool tunnel. Squeaks sent shivers up my spine. Monster rats or some new monster? We ran faster. Finally, we came to a solid wall and stopped. The wall had a door—we had arrived.
“Don’t speak,” Sam instructed. “Just follow my lead.” He lifted the latch and pushed open the door. The scent of sausages attacked my nose and my stomach shriveled. We’d entered a room with shelves piled high with bags of flour, jars of strange things, and vegetables.
We tiptoed through the storage room toward light and noise as heat from the kitchen warmed my face. Ahead of us dishes clattered, pots banged, and kids jabbered. Breakfast was in progress. I was crazed with hunger for a real meal and could barely think. Sam was better off—he nabbed two white aprons from hooks, and we hunkered down in a corner behind a pallet of flour and pu
t them on.
“The bake servants may think we work here, too,” Sam said. “I just don’t want to run into the head chef. He knows me.”
He took something that looked like a pumpkin and I grabbed a bag of potatoes, yearning for mashed ones with gravy.
“Act like you’ve got somewhere to go,” Sam said.
Man, did I have somewhere to go, but it wasn’t in here. Boys and girls in white aprons bustled around the kitchen. Soon we were among them in the hot room where fires blazed in hearths that held meaty birds roasting on spits, their juices sizzling on burning logs. The heat felt good at first, compared to the damp tunnel but then became sweltering.
“See your friend?”
No such luck. Sam grabbed one of the bake kids, a tall girl with chopped short hair. “Hey, any new boys come in here lately?”
The girl shook him off. “Not since two weeks ago.” She ran off carrying a smoking dish of bacon. My stomach lurched in response. My last hot breakfast was days ago.
Sam ducked behind a curtain and pulled me with him. “The head chef,” he whispered.
We were inside another storage area. The curtain didn’t go all the way to the floor. Skinny legs ran about in the kitchen except for the fat, bowlegged ones heading straight toward our hiding place. We gripped our food. Drops of sweat rolled down the side of my face and I swiped at it with my arm. Light burst bright before us as the curtains were flung open.
“Aha!” The fat chef glared down at us with a red face. “I just heard there were outsiders in here. Thieves! And you, Sam, a traitor. Hekate wants you for questioning. You better turn yourself in. She may be the one we all answer to soon enough if she delivers on her promise.” He tried to seize us, but Sam threw his pumpkin at the chef’s stomach so hard that he fell on his butt. Sam ran past him with me right behind. As the chef struggled to rise, I dumped my bag of potatoes on him, sending him back down. Chubby hands clawed at me, but I pushed him away and ran past as fast as my aching legs would go.
Joshua and the Lightning Road Page 9
