Air Keep

by J. Scott Savage

  “It had to be,” Kyja said. “We just didn’t see it because we were focused on Master Therapass.”

  “I guess so.” Marcus looked at Kyja and she looked back. She had to be thinking the same thing.

  “Should we follow it?” she asked.

  “Definitely not,” Riph Raph, said, eyes wide. “In fact, let’s stay as far away from it as possible.”

  Marcus grinned at the skyte. “You can stay here if you want, lizard breath, but we’re going.”

  Chapter 14

  On the Trail

  This is why I don’t like Turnip Head,” Riph Raph said, hopping along the floor behind Marcus and Kyja as they followed the thin silvery trail down the hallway. “Before he comes, things are dull, just the way I like them—eating bugs, catching fish, reading books. Then he shows up, and suddenly everyone gets frozen.”

  Marcus laughed. “Was it really boring while I was gone?”

  Kyja felt her face grow warm. “Maybe a little.” She knew she should be frightened. Obviously, something strange was going on. But to tell the truth, it felt sort of like old times. She’d discovered that she liked adventure. “What about you?” she asked. “Were you bored?”

  “You have no idea.” Marcus rolled his eyes. “Imagine no TV. No Internet. No phones.” He suddenly realized what he’d just said and burst into laughter. “Okay. I guess you can imagine that. But it was so boring. Nothing to do. No place to go. No one to talk to.”

  Kyja grinned. She liked that he missed talking to her.

  Marcus stopped and turned around. “That’s weird.”

  “Hmm?” Kyja looked back at the line they’d been following and realized it was gone. She looked forward; the line was still there.

  “It’s disappearing as we follow it,” Marcus said.

  “Maybe we just brushed it off with our feet.” Kyja nudged the toe of her slipper cautiously across the line. It didn’t even blur. She rubbed harder. Still nothing.

  Riph Raph poked his beak between the two of them. “Who’s up for forgetting this whole thing and heading down to the kitchen for hot scones?”

  Kyja ignored him. “There has to be a reason we’re the only ones who don’t seem to be frozen. Someone wants us to follow the line.”

  “I agree,” Marcus said. “But who and to where?”

  Suddenly, Kyja remembered the letter she’d found on her bed. Could the same person be behind this? Quickly she told Marcus about what the note said. “I realized it was talking about shadows, and I thought maybe it was a clue about how to get you here safely.”

  “Of course,” Marcus said. “That totally makes sense.”

  “It does?” Kyja felt a satisfaction she hadn’t experienced in a long time. Not since she and Marcus had defeated the zentan at the top of the tower. “Master Therapass thought I was being too impulsive.”

  “Master Therapass would tell a glacier it was too impulsive. What was he going to do, wait another six months to bring me back?”

  Kyja giggled. “Probably.”

  Marcus leaned on his staff. “You know, I had kind of a message too, at the monastery. A bunch of my stuff was taken out of my room and spread down the hall. That’s how I found the mirror that took me to . . . the other place.”

  Kyja had a feeling Marcus was hiding something from her. “Do you think the same person who moved your things made this trail?”

  “I don’t see how,” Marcus said. “We’re the only ones who can cross between Earth and Farworld. Except for . . .”

  “The Dark Circle,” they said at the same time. Suddenly things didn’t seem quite so funny anymore.

  Kyja followed the line with her eyes to where it disappeared around the next bend in the hallway. With no guards or wizards to protect them, they would be on their own if the Thrathkin S’Bae had managed to find a way past the protections of the tower. Kyja had been practicing sword fighting and archery for months. But here she was without a weapon of any kind.

  “Do you want to go back?” Marcus asked.

  Riph Raph bobbed his head up and down so enthusiastically his ears flapped like wings.

  Kyja licked her lips. “No. But let’s be careful. I’ll watch behind us, and you watch ahead. And please tell me you’ve been practicing your magic.”

  “I have,” he said, his voice low.

  Together they followed the line as it led up one hallway and down another, always in the center of the corridor. Every time Kyja checked behind them, the line was gone, yet she never once saw it actually disappear.

  Her head was turned when Marcus stopped and pointed. “Look!”

  Kyja spun around, bracing for some kind of attack.

  Marcus pointed to where the line finally left the center of the hallway and turned into an open door. Kyja hadn’t been paying attention to which way they’d been walking, but now she recognized where they were.

  She looked back the way they’d come—the line was gone—and ahead. “This isn’t possible.”

  “What’s inside that door?”

  Riph Raph hopped up onto Kyja’s shoulder, tilted his head and said, “Someone has a twisted sense of humor.”

  Marcus looked from Kyja to Riph Raph. “What does he mean?”

  Kyja walked up to the doorway and pointed inside. “See for yourself.”

  Marcus’s leg was hurting and his back throbbed. All he wanted to do was rest somewhere, but even so, he tensed as he approached the door. The silver trail didn’t come back out, so whatever had made it must still be inside.

  Pressing his back against the wall, Marcus inched forward until he could see into the room. His jaw dropped, and he looked at Kyja, unable to believe what he was seeing.

  Kyja nodded. “We’re back where we started—it’s Master Therapass’s study.”

  Marcus stepped into the study and looked cautiously around. Everything looked exactly the same. The wizard hadn’t moved. The books and papers all appeared to be in the same places. The fire was still frozen in the fireplace.

  “This doesn’t make any sense,” Marcus said. “Who would want to lead us back to where we started?”

  Kyja tugged on a strand of hair. “Why is the more important question. Either someone wanted us out of the way, or they wanted to get us frustrated.”

  Riph Raph gave a wide, jaw-cracking yawn. “We could always sleep on it and see how things look in the morning. If time stays frozen, we won’t have to worry about waking up late.”

  Marcus found a large brown shell in the corner of the room and dropped onto it, stretching out his sore leg. He looked at the last bit of the silver trail that led in through the study door. Something about the way it glistened looked familiar. Why? Was it supposed to mean something to him?

  He closed his eyes and tried to concentrate. He was almost positive he’d seen something like the trail before. Only not quite as big. More like—

  The shell he was sitting on shifted. Marcus rolled off it with a yelp.

  “What’s wrong?” Kyja cried, rushing to his side.

  Marcus sat up and looked at the shell. It was moving. Almost too slowly to tell, but it was moving. It wasn’t just a shell. It was . . . “A snail!” he shouted. “That’s what made the silver line. It’s a snail trail.”

  Kyja walked around to the other side of the snail and squatted down. “You’re right,” she said. “I can see its head. I’ve never seen a snail so big before.”

  Riph Raph flew over and licked his beak. “Looks juicy.”

  “You’re not eating it.” Marcus left his staff lying on the ground where he’d dropped it and scooted along beside the snail. “Something doesn’t make sense. Look how slowly it’s moving. No way could it make that loop in one night. And if it was here earlier, someone would have noticed.”

  “It’s the only thing besides us that’s not frozen,” Kyja said. “Maybe it’s magic. It might be some kind of message.” She knocked on the snail’s thick brown shell. “Hello? Anybody in there?”

  Marcus couldn’t keep fr
om laughing; Kyja scowled at him. “Laugh if you want to,” she said. “But there are much stranger things than talking snails in Farworld.”

  “I know.” He’d seen quite a few of them himself—a giant scorpion thing that could look like anything it wanted, a flying ice-dragon, farm animals that told jokes, and a creature that was half fox and half boar. From what he’d heard, that wasn’t even the smallest part of what was out there. He hiccupped and covered his mouth. “It’s just that when you were talking about snails, it made me think of . . .” He paused, an idea forming.

  “Made you think of what?”

  Marcus frowned and slowly looked around the room. He’d seen snails once before in Farworld. But it had to be a coincidence. The other snails were small and quite possibly even dead. Nothing like this beast at all. Only with so many weird things happening, it almost seemed to fit.

  “Look!” he shouted, pointing to a shelf a few feet above the snail. He reached out and picked up a tiny golden horn no bigger than his little finger.

  Kyja’s eyes went wide. “You think that belongs to . . . ?”

  Marcus nodded. “It makes as much sense as anything else that’s happened today.” He wet his lips, put the tiny horn to his mouth, and blew. It created a surprisingly loud rooo-oop. Before he could take the horn from his lips, the air in front of the fireplace went sort of hazy and a small man appeared lying on the rug before the frozen fire.

  The man, who was barely half as tall as Kyja, was dressed in a long black coat, purple velvet vest, and baggy green pants that barely came past his knees. A battered top hat covered his eyes.

  “Mr. Z?” Kyja said.

  At the sound of her voice, the man sat up. The top hat tumbled from his head and looked like it was going to hit the ground. But somehow, he managed to catch it with the toe of his boot and kick it into the air. With one hand, he grabbed the hat and slapped it onto his thin gray hair while the other hand caught a pair of silver spectacles that fell out of the hat.

  He rubbed his bulbous red nose, put on the glasses, and looked from Marcus to Kyja.

  “Um hum, um hmm,” he coughed, clearing his throat, and in a squeaky voice called, “Let the games begin!”

  Chapter 15

  An Unexpected Ride

  Well,” the little man demanded. “What are you waiting for?” He pulled an old shoe out of his coat pocket, tossed it to his snail, took out a half-eaten loaf of bread, stuck that back in his coat, and finally found a pocket watch that seemed far too big for his puny hands. “We don’t have all day.” He opened the watch and rubbed his nose. “Although technically, I suppose we do.”

  “Who’s the dwarf with the weird clothes?” asked Riph Raph.

  Mr. Z gave Riph Raph a scathing look. “One of the many reason I prefer snails to flying reptilians—they’re almost never rude. And when they are, it is always called for. And entertaining.”

  Kyja could only stare. The last time she’d seen Mr. Z, he’d sent them on quests to become land elementals. She was sure they’d never run into him again.

  “What are you doing here?” Marcus asked, clearly as flabbergasted as she was.

  “Until you blew that horn, I was sleeping.”

  “Did you do all this?” Kyja finally managed to ask. “The trail? Freezing everyone?”

  Mr. Z clucked and shook his head, threatening to knock off his top hat again. “Dear girl, do I look like I leave a trail of silvery, slimy, snaily goodness everywhere I go? Why, if I could do that, I would be a star, a celebrity, a . . . well, a snail. No, I’m afraid I only leave footprints. Just like the rest of us unfortunate enough not to be born gastropods.”

  Marcus shook his head like a man who’d taken one too many punches. “But you did freeze everyone.”

  “Freeze? No, lad. I didn’t freeze anyone.” He twiddled his fingers as if he were preparing to play the piano. “I simply slowed them down while speeding you up. I can speed them up again anytime you like. Observe.”

  Kyja waited for something to happen. When nothing appeared to have changed, she said, “Well?”

  Mr. Z beamed. “All in the wrists, you see. And a bit in the ankles.” He stuck out one of his stubby legs and examined it. “I ought to consider using the ankles a bit more. Who knows what might happen. Did you like it?”

  “Like what?” Marcus asked.

  The little man yanked the lapels of his coat. “You think you can do better? Go ahead and try. I’ve got all day.” He glanced at his pocket watch. “Or rather, I’ve got all night.”

  Marcus looked to Kyja, but she had no idea what Mr. Z was talking about either. “It’s not that I think I can do better,” Marcus said. “I just . . . I don’t know what you did.”

  Mr. Z’s lips drooped. “You missed the performance of a lifetime?” He turned to Kyja. “You saw it, didn’t you?”

  Kyja felt terrible about shaking her head. The man seemed so dejected. “Sorry.”

  “I see.” Mr. Z took a deep breath, tugged on the lapels of his coat, and seemed to pull himself together. “Never fear. What can be done once can be done twice.” He pointed at his eyes with two fingers and then at Master Therapass. “Watch closely. You don’t need glasses, do you? I’ve got spares.”

  Kyja shook her head. She watched Master Therapass, determined not to miss whatever was about to happen.

  “This is going to be so amazing,” Mr. Z said. He waggled his fingers.

  If she hadn’t been staring directly at Master Therapass, Kyja wouldn’t have noticed anything. The wizard’s hand twitched ever so slightly, his finger moving no more than an inch across the page. His chest also appeared to rise a little. Then he froze again.

  “Ahhhh.” Mr. Z grinned, rubbing his hands together with obvious glee. “To be completely honest, I wasn’t sure I could repeat my last performance. Or at least not so well. Perfection is impossible to match and surprisingly difficult to top. Or is that the other way around? In any event, I’m only glad I could share this moment of unsurpassed glory with you—two of my closest friends. And your . . . pet. But we really must be going now.”

  Kyja, who had forgotten how annoying Mr. Z could be, grimaced. “You didn’t do anything. His hand only moved a tiny bit.”

  Mr. Z seemed genuinely confused. “Well, of course. That was the point. Do you have any idea the degree of difficulty in moving time up only a fraction? What did you expect? An oafish parody of chronological manipulation? A remedial reign of ridiculosity? A . . . a . . .” He threw his hands up in despair, and everything started up again.

  Master Therapass turned the page of his book. Kyja looked for Mr. Z, but he and his snail were gone. From outside in the hallway came a cry of alarm, and then another. Horns sounded. The wizard looked up. “Kyja? Marcus? What are you doing out of your rooms?” The old wizard’s eyes went from Marcus to Kyja with growing distress. “Something has happened!”

  “I, I mean we . . .” Kyja gulped, unsure how to explain, especially since she wasn’t completely sure what had happened herself.

  A guard raced down the hallway—his armor clanking—and hurried into the room. “Master, outside—”

  Everything froze in place again. Mr. Z and his snail were back. “You see what happens,” he said sadly, “when one uses heavy-handed chronology correction?”

  Kyja tried to catch her breath. This was all completely confusing, almost as if Mr. Z was distracting them on purpose.

  Marcus stomped toward the fireplace. Even bent and leaning on his staff, he towered over the small man. “What I see is you doing a bunch of tricks and not telling us why you’re here. Are you the one who made me drink that goblin goo?”

  “Are you the person who left me the note?” Kyja asked.

  “It’s time to stop messing around and give us answers,” Marcus said.

  “Any more lizard jokes,” Riph Raph added from his perch high on a bookshelf, “and that snail of yours is going to be slug sautéed.”

  “I can see they were right when they said you would be di
fficult to work with.” Mr. Z patted the top of his hat.

  “Who said?” Kyja tried to ask. But something was wrong. She could barely move her lips. Her jaws felt like they were stuck in molasses, and when she tried to look at Marcus, her neck moved so slowly it would have taken fifteen minutes just to turn her head.

  “I’m afraid we’ll never get through this if you keep asking questions.” Mr. Z’s voice was much higher than its normal pitch, and his words came so quickly, it was hard to understand everything he said; it all seemed to run together.

  “I’ve taken the liberty of slowing you both down I will try to speak clearly enough that you can understand but I must say this is rather difficult for me and for you I would imagine I have an important message that happens to be somewhat time sensitive it is one I believe you will be quite interested to hear and I have gone to extreme measures to deliver it if you think you can listen without interrupting blink your eyes otherwise I will be forced to keep you in a state of diminished chronological capacity.”

  Marcus and Kyja both blinked.

  Mr. Z tugged at his ears. “—nopu etarobale rehtar ro nialpxe ot em wolla neht lleW” He quickly pulled his ears. “Sorry about that. Wrong direction. As I was saying, allow to me explain, or rather elaborate upon, why I am here.”

  He tucked the watch into a pocket of his vest and pulled out a small silver scroll. “I, the undersigned, having been procured by the first party, hereafter referred to as Aerisians, as their agent, emissary, intermediary, mediator, and negotiator, do hereby—”

  “Wait,” Marcus interrupted. “Are we supposed to be making sense of any of this?”

  Kyja didn’t understand most of it either, but she did recognize one word thanks to her studies. “Aerisians. The air elementals?”

  “Indeed.” Mr. Z put away his scroll. “As it so happens, they are willing to meet with you, and they have sent me to bring you to them.”

  The air elementals! Was it really going to be this easy to find them? “When?” Kyja blurted.