“We need to talk to our parents first,” said Sarah. “We should convince them we’ve changed our minds about Medicorp. Then we’ll have them contact Anna and Briggs.”
“Just have them call the number they find online,” said Anna. “I’ve rigged their phones so any calls they place to the real Medicorp will be routed to me instead.”
“You can do that?” said Calvin, eyes like saucers.
Anna fixed him with a stare. Her eyes could only be described as “crazy.”
“I can do anything,” she said softly.
Calvin gulped.
“We can’t just turn over a new leaf all at once,” said Miles. “We’ve got to make it seem more legit than that. We can’t all say, ‘Hey, you know that thing we said we’d never do? We want to do that!’ That’ll seem weird.”
“One of us should start it,” said Raven. “Start the conversation. Then the others can bring it up, and we can say we got the idea from our friend.”
“It’s gotta be somebody the rest of us would listen to,” said Miles.
“So, Sarah, then?” I said, my voice soft.
Sarah’s gaze rounded on me, her ears brightening to pink. “It doesn’t have to be me,” she said, stammering to get the words out.
Miles grinned. “Oh, I think it’s absolutely gotta be Sarah,” he said.
“All in favor?” said Raven with a smirk.
Everyone raised their hand. Except Sarah. I glanced around, then quickly put mine up, hoping it didn’t call any attention to me.
“It’s settled then,” said Miles, still smiling broadly. “Let the rest of us know when we should bring it up, boss.”
Sarah growled. “I am not the boss.”
Raven barked a laugh.
“And now, you all need to get back,” said Briggs. “We don’t want your folks to start wondering where you are.”
We headed toward the front of the building, and the parking lot where their unlabeled van waited. But before stepping through the door, I grabbed Anna’s arm and held back. The others walked out, not noticing as the door shut, cutting off our conversation.
“Anna,” I said quietly. “I…I was wondering if I could get your help with something.”
I could almost see her ears perk up with interest. “Of course. What’s the deal?”
“I…I know you know a lot about all of us,” I said, suddenly embarrassed. I could feel myself blushing. “But I don’t know how much you know about my family.”
“Illegal immigrants,” she said bluntly. “Your dad used to have a decent job, but not any more. Now he does random day laborer work wherever he can get it, and odd jobs for his uncle when there are some.”
“Right,” I said. “I was wondering…look, is there anything you can do to help us out?”
I saw her repress a sigh. “Tess, you know I’d love to. But I can’t just start dropping money into your parents’ bank account. They’d start wondering what was going on, and if they started poking around, you’d be at even greater risk of exposure.”
My stomach tied in a knot. Of course, she was right. Why hadn’t I thought of that?
But, wait. Maybe there was still something I could do.
“What if I got a job?” I said.
Her eyebrows raised. “What?”
“No, not really,” I said. “But what if I told them that I did? Working part-time after school at a coffee shop or something. You could just give the money to me. I could spend it on Nikki and—I mean, on my brother and sister.”
“Nikki and Kellyn,” she said with a small smile. “I know their names.”
“They’re the only ones I’m really worried about,” I said. I felt a knot of emotion starting to form in my throat. Thankfully I’d already had a passionate, if silent cry earlier. It helped me deal with the emotion better, stuffing it down and out of sight. “Mom and dad are used to it. They’ve been living like this for years. Me, I’ve seen both sides, and I know how to cope. But Nikki and Kellyn are still so young. Nikki’s shoes don’t even keep water out when he walks through a puddle, and there’s no way my parents can get him new ones. If he got sick…I wouldn’t be able to do anything.”
“I understand,” said Anna, her voice warming up. “Your plan sounds perfect. We should do it.” Her mouth spread into a wide grin. “And, I might be able to do you one better.”
“Really? What?”
“Oh no.” She shook her head. “No promises until I know I can do it. But if I can, it’ll solve a lot more problems than just a pair of shoes. But we’ll talk about it later.”
“Thank you, Anna,” I said earnestly. “And…don’t tell the others.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she said. “Now let’s get out of here. They’re going to start getting curious, and then you’ll have to tell them yourself.”
We all headed home. Raven decided to spend the night at Sarah’s place, and Sarah invited me to do the same. I declined hastily. I didn’t want her to try and talk with me about our upset earlier in the day. There was no reason to broach that line of conversation. I knew if we left it alone long enough, she’d forget about it. Or at least I hoped so.
Once we got back to Midrealm, Sarah asked me to tell the others about my dream of the old man the night before. So with the Runegard and the others sitting around me in a quiet circle, I told the story again. Everyone listened without asking a single question or making any comments.
“Yeah, I definitely haven’t had a single dream since we became Realm Keepers,” said Calvin when I was done. “This has got to be something different.”
“I think he’s right,” said Miles.
“My Lady, I must advise against altering our course,” said Cara. “Our mission to Wyrmspire is what we should be focused on now. Diverting for any reason puts the entire mission at risk.”
I understand your concern, Cara,” said Sarah. “But that’s why we want to talk to Greystone. This is a magic thing, and I don’t know what to think about it one way or another. And no offense, but magic’s not your strong suit, either.”
Cara hesitated, then gave a slow nod. “As you wish, then, my Lady.”
Sarah took a deep breath. “Okay, Tess. Let’s call Greystone.”
I fished in my pocket and pulled out the stone that would let me “call” Greystone with my mind. I focused and drew upon my power, and the world turned white and foggy.
Greystone?
Immediately, I felt another presence in the void. As though he were being drawn to me across hundreds of miles, Greystone flew into sight to stand before me. His mouth moved, but the only sound I heard was in my mind.
“Lady Tess? What is it? Is anything wrong?”
“No,” I said. “But we need your advice on something. One sec.”
I reached out to my right and held Blade’s hand in my own. He took Sarah’s hand, and so on until we were all connected. The Runegard reached forward to place their hands on our shoulders so that everyone was in the loop.
“Okay,” said Sarah. “We’re all here.”
“What is this all about?” asked Greystone, his bushy brows furrowing as he peered into Sarah’s face. She turned and nodded at me, and Greystone’s glance shifted to me in surprise.
“I had a dream last night,” I began. Greystone’s eyebrows shot skyward, but I pressed forward with the story before he could speak—I’d already had to relay the story twice now, and I didn’t want to repeat myself over and over again.
“I dreamed I was here, at the statue of Malus. It was weird. No one could see me or hear me. Then I saw an old man, and he took me to the top of the statue. He told me that there’s a woman nearby named Meridia who we have to save.”
“You entered the dream state,” said Greystone. His voice was barely more than a whisper.
“You know about it?” I said, unable to contain my surprise. “Why didn’t you tell me about it before?”
“I never thought you would need the knowledge of it so soon,” said Greystone. “It is not e
asy to enter the dream state. Keepers have meditated for decades and been unable to reach it. Some never do. If I were teaching you to fight, I would not teach you how to block with a shield before teaching you how to place your feet.”
“Okay, but what do you think about it?” said Sarah. “Can we trust this old man? Or should we ignore it and press on to Wyrmspire?”
“No!” cried Greystone. His voice was so loud in our heads that we all jumped. “No, you must not ignore this,” said Greystone. “If a spirit within the dream state says you must save a single woman, even if your lives may be put at risk, you must do it. It is akin to a message from Destiny herself.”
“But he was just another wizard,” I said. “What if he was working for the enemy?”
Greystone cocked his head at me, and his eyes narrowed. “Another wizard? What are you talking about? You cannot contact others among the living in the dream state. It is where the spirits of the dead live.”
My throat went dry as sandpaper. My eyes wide, I looked over at Blade as he held my hand. His eyes were as shocked as mine.
If a wizard is powerful enough, they can encounter the spirits of their own past here, the old man had said.
He hadn’t been another wizard at all. Or if he had, he’d already died.
MERIDIA
TESS
WE SAID GOOD-BYE TO Greystone and then set out within minutes. We could feel the urgency. It made us move faster, made our words curt and to the point, and once we were mounted it drove us to push our horses faster and faster as we searched for a cleft that looked like a keyhole.
My thoughts were on the old man. He was a spirit of the past. A ghost. How long had he waited there for me? What was it like, waiting around the spirit world for years until someone showed up so you could deliver a message?
“There!” cried Barius.
I turned at his shout, startled out of my own thoughts. There on our right, set into the mountains west of us, was a great rent torn into the living rock. It swelled up from the ground, tapering nearly together before expanding again into a circular shape. A perfect match for a keyhole.
We guided our horses right, swerving across the land and cutting a diagonal path right for it. Once we approached, we slowed our horses and went through the crack at a walk.
Just on the other side, the space widened out into a broad, circular shape. It must have been nearly a mile wide, but it was completely visible from the outside. The only way you could have seen it would have been from the air—it opened up into the empty sky, now a deep, luminous blue above us.
In the center of the space stood a great tower, at least a hundred feet tall. It was perfectly round, wide at the base, and tapered at the top. It didn’t look to have a roof, exactly—the stone simply curved around and then stopped. The shape reminded me vaguely of a woman standing wrapped in a long, flowing cloak with a hood thrown over her head. The swell at the bottom of the tower could have been the bottom of the cloak, billowing in the wind.
“I’m guessing that’s our tower,” said Calvin.
“What was your first clue?” said Blade.
“The old man was right,” I said. “There’s no door.”
It was true. The walls were all smooth stone. There was a ring of windows around the outside of the tower about halfway up, and another three-quarters of the way up. But there were no openings in the bottom.
“So…how do we get in to rescue Melissa?” said Miles.
“Meridia,” said Samuel.
“Whatever.”
“Let’s ride around the back, see if there’s an entrance there,” said Sarah.
“Sarah, it’s a tower with no door,” said Calvin. “Don’t you think that means there’s…I don’t know…no door? He didn’t call it ‘a tower with the door in the back.’”
“Well, do you have a better idea?” Sarah snapped.
“Actually, I do,” he said. “You’re the Keeper of freaking Stone.”
Sarah blinked. She stared at the hard, stony outer wall of the tower. Then she looked away from Calvin and sniffed. “Well, I guess I could just open up a way in. I just didn’t want to be rude.”
“Right,” he said, rolling his eyes.
We followed Sarah to the tower’s wall. She studied it for a moment, looking back and forth along its rounded length.
“What’s the holdup?” said Blade. “Make with the rock stuff.”
“I’m trying to open up a hole where we can actually walk in,” said Sarah. “I can feel within the walls. A lot of the tower is solid. But…ah! There.”
She nudged her horse, and it sidestepped a few feet. Then she raised a hand. Before our eyes, the stones of the tower shuddered. Then they slid aside, rearranging themselves neatly out of our way to form a miniature tunnel, just six feet long, that led into the tower’s interior. Within there was only blackness.
“Blade, lights,” said Sarah, dismounting.
We all clambered off our horses. As we stepped into the blackness, Blade lit a ball of fire in his hand. Then he summoned another with the left, sending it flying along ahead of us to light up the tower’s bottom floor as we went along.
We found ourselves in a long stone passage that went straight through the tower’s middle. It was longer than I thought it had any right to be, but it was straight. Soon it led us to a wide, circular space that ran straight up through the tower’s center. Around the outside of the space were steps that ran all the way to a lip high above us. What was above that lip, I couldn’t see, except another ceiling far, far above.
“Up the stairs?” said Calvin quietly. His whisper fled up the stony tunnel into the space above.
“It’s that or leave,” said Miles.
We started up. Cara and Barius led the way up the wide stone staircase, blades drawn and shields held ready. We all had our weapons out. I didn’t nock my bow, but my hand twitched in anticipation, ready to draw an arrow at a moment’s notice.
But the ascent was uneventful. After a few tense minutes, we found ourselves on the middle floor of the tower with no one else in sight. The sudden light coming through the windows nearly blinded me after the darkness of our climb, and I winced as I waited for my eyes to adjust.
“Okay, now what?” said Blade, one eye closed as he squinted at the windows.
“Chaos above,” whispered Darren.
I and most of the others whirled, ready for a fight. I snatched an arrow from the quiver on my back. Then I noticed that Darren wasn’t looking at anything in particular; he was staring at the ground. I followed his eyes, and I nearly dropped my bow as my fingers went limp.
Carved into the stone beneath our feet was the most perfect mosaic I had ever seen. It was a flawless tapestry of scenes, lovingly etched into the hard marble in tiny bumps and contours. They spun from the center of the room in an endless spiral, circling ever outward and outward through the room until they reached the room’s outer wall.
The wall itself contained much, much larger sculptured scenes, each of them surrounding one of the dozen windows that spanned the tower’s rim. Each scene was centered around a window, using the window as a feature of the scene in one way or another. In one scene, I saw a man stepping out of the window into the stone as though the window was a door to the outside. The man was young and carried a staff. I immediately recognized him as Malus. Above him, and above the window, curled another familiar shape: a dragon, its head curled low to listen to what Malus was saying.
Every other window had another scene. Some of them I could make out, others were too elaborate and confusing to take in at first glance.
“Holy crud,” said Calvin.
“I have never seen something so beautiful,” said Nora.
Cara forced herself to look away from the walls and drew Sarah’s gaze. “My Lady, we must continue. If we are to rescue this Meridia, let us do it quickly.”
Sarah shook herself as though ridding her mind of a dream. “Of course,” she said. “Come on, guys. We’ve got to find her.”
>
“Where?” said Miles. “The place is empty.”
Why have you come to my tower?
I yelped and jumped. My hand tensed on my bow again, and the arrow I’d drawn at Darren’s gasp was nocked to the string in a flash. I had the bow half-drawn before I realized there was no one behind me.
The others all stared at me like I was insane.
“My Lady?” said Nora, confused. “What is it?”
“You didn’t hear her?” I stammered.
Then I realized: the voice had been in my head. It hadn’t been out loud. I’d been so startled, I hadn’t processed it fully.
Now I stared into the air and waited for another word to come. But there was nothing.
Hello? I thought. Is someone there? Is that Meridia?
Why have you come? the voice came again. It was strikingly familiar, but I couldn’t place it. Tell me now, before I destroy you.
I felt myself go pale. It had to be Meridia, and apparently she wasn’t super happy about intruders. Please, we’re not here to hurt you. We’re here to rescue you. Someone’s coming to kill you, and we’ve been sent to make sure that doesn’t happen.
“Tess?” said Sarah. “What’s happening?”
“Someone’s speaking to me,” I said. “In my mind. Hold on.”
Calvin made a face and spun his finger next to his ear. Blade punched his shoulder. Hard.
I do not require your help, the voice said. It sounded haughty and arrogant. No intruder can touch me. Leave now, before I demonstrate why.
Please, hear me out, I thought. We were told we had to protect you. I’m a wizard of Mind. I was in the dream state, and an old man told me that if we didn’t save you, the world would be in danger.
There was a long, long pause. Then, An old man?
Yes, I thought, relieved that at least she was thinking about it. He was old and bearded. He used to be a wizard of Mind, like me. He carried a staff with a pink crystal set in the top.
An even longer silence this time. I waited, hoping against hope that she would listen to reason.
Wyrmspire (Realm Keepers Book 2) Page 40
