by John Corwin
"It's okay." I waved them away. "Be ready to pull me up again, okay?"
"Are you insane?" Max gripped my arm. "I thought we'd lost you!"
Though the cool air raised bumps on my skin, the lake hadn't seemed cold at all. How had I breathed underwater? "This lake is a puzzle, and the only way to solve it is going back under." Before they could stop me, I jumped back in.
The glowing figures grabbed me once again. This time, I spoke. "Wait!" My voice rang out clear as a bell.
The woman appeared once again. "Why do you disturb our lake?"
I dared take a breath and discovered it was no different than breathing on shore. The water felt warm, comfortable. "We need the key on the island."
"And why should I let you have it?" An inhumanly wide smile stretched across her face, revealing sharp teeth. "Why should I not eat you now?"
My inside froze in horror. What if this challenge is lethal? I gripped the thread, ready to tug it so Shushiel could rescue me. "I don't taste very good?"
She burst into laughter. "You're probably right." Before I could say anything else, she gripped me and we jetted toward the island, stopping just at the shore. "Retrieve your key, and I will take you to the other side of the lake."
My mouth dropped open. "That simple?"
"Was it really so simple?" Her lips quirked into an amused expression. "It took you quite some time to build up the courage to step foot into the water."
"Because you look like decaying water ghosts!" I protested.
"Oh, that Kanaan." She tutted. "He is a sneaky devil."
"Do you really live in the lake?" I asked.
"No," she replied. "We are water spirits. Kanaan asked us to help with this challenge."
"Water spirits?" I'd never heard of such a thing. "How do you know Kanaan?"
"He saved our waters from mortals." She grimaced. "If not for him, we would have lost our home." She pointed up. "Retrieve your key. My people and I are eager to leave this dark place."
"I will, thanks." I pulled myself out of the water and took the key.
Max cupped his hands and shouted, "What happened?"
I did the same and yelled back. "They're friendly water spirits. Get in the water and they'll take you to the other side."
"Are you sure?" Ambria said.
"Well, they haven't eaten me yet!" I shouted.
I got into the water. The woman took my hand and jetted me to the side of the lake with the door. "We will bring your friends to join you."
"If you're a spirit, how can you touch me?" I asked.
"The water makes us solid." She shifted into the shape of an otter and swam in circles around me, then morphed into great white shark, and back into human form. "When we are close to water, we can remain solid, even in the air for a brief time, but when water is far, we become pure energy, slowly dissipating and dying."
"Do you live in a lake or the ocean?" I asked.
"We prefer fresh waters," she said. "Others enjoy the salt and sea, but those waters have become too polluted for our tastes."
"Thank you." I squeezed her hand.
"You are welcome." She pushed me up. I shot up into the air, a jet of water holding me up until I stepped onto the solid rock. The water receded from my body and clothes until I was completely dry.
A moment later, my friends jetted out of the water, Ambria crying out with delight, Max shouting in alarm. Shushiel pounced lightly to shore, turned and waved her mandibles at the ghostly creatures.
"Thank you," she said.
"That was fun!" Ambria clapped her hands together. "Oh, can we do it again sometime?"
Max touched his clothes. "Hey, I'm dry!"
Shushiel removed my clothing from a silk pouch on her abdomen. "I thought you might want these again."
"Thank you." I dressed quickly.
Max took the key from me and twisted it in the lock, but hesitated before opening the door. "I hope there's not another bleeding challenge on the other side."
Ambria twisted the handle and tugged it open. The hallway near the mansion waited on the other side. We breathed a sigh of relief and stepped through.
Kanaan was reading a book in the gauntlet room when we stepped inside. He closed the book and directed us toward our first exercises.
I held up a hand. "What was the point of the lake challenge? Once I got in the lake, the water spirits helped us get the key and reach the door. There was nothing to it."
"Were you frightened?" Kanaan asked.
"Heck yeah!" Max shivered. "I thought they were going to kill us!"
"Me too," Ambria said.
Shushiel hung from a stone column overhead. "They did not look friendly."
Kanaan nodded. "Why did you go into the water?"
"I thought I could fish them out," I admitted. The idea seemed foolish in retrospect.
"You risked death to cross."
"Well, I suppose. They weren't really deadly," I said. "In fact, they were polite and helpful."
"You did not know that." Kanaan cast his gaze at each of us. "Fear of the unknown will paralyze even the greatest warriors. You must be willing to accept the unknown and face it so it will become known."
Max scratched his head, mouth gaping open. "Huh?"
Ambria sniffed. "I think the short version is face your fears."
Kanaan didn't answer and led us through our exercises. As we lunched, he poured himself a cup of tea and perched on a stone pillar.
"You have done well." He took a sip and looked up at Shushiel who swung in lazy circles overhead, snacking on a rat or two. "Since you start school tomorrow, you will meet me here after classes. There will be no more challenges. I will open a portal instead." He gave me a pendant shaped like a blue shield. "Tap this and will it to contact me after classes. Then I will arrange for the portal."
Max breathed a sigh of relief.
"Have we really improved?" Ambria asked. "I feel just as exhausted every day."
Kanaan nodded. "Even with the potions, progress takes time." He stood. "Practice is over for the day. You should prepare for school tomorrow."
Max pumped a fist but kept his celebration silent.
"Did they ever get to the bottom of the Founders Day riots?" I asked Kanaan.
"I requested information from the investigators," he replied. "So far, they have ignored me."
"Ignored you?" Ambria's voice rose in disbelief. "Aren't you a Blue Cloak?"
"A Blue Cloak no longer," he replied. "Until our lost people return from Seraphina, I will remain independent."
"That's something else I want to talk to you about." I brushed the crumbs off my pants and stood up. "I think Victus used a Relic of Juranthemon to disable the Alabaster Arches."
"The Hand of Jura." Kanaan nodded. "The hand unbound magical properties from the Alabaster Arches, but even with it, repairing them would be almost impossible."
"Impossible?" Ambria plucked a grape and rolled it in her fingers. "I thought the hand was the only thing that could fix it."
Kanaan motioned us to follow him and led us out of the gauntlet room, down the corridor, and into the omniarch room. He removed a glass lens from inside his robes and held it up in front of Ambria's face. "What do you see?"
Ambria's eyes widened. "All sorts of glowing lines and symbols."
I leaned over and peered through the glass. Thousands of tiny glowing lines no thicker than spider silk stretched in all directions, each one emanating from tiny symbols etched in the obsidian columns and connecting them to others. Max pushed us both aside and took in the sight.
"Are those the enchantments that power the arch?" Ambria asked.
"Precisely." Kanaan flicked his fingers and the lens vanished. "Any enchanted object appears just so when viewed through a crafting lens."
"We read about those in enchantments," I said. "They're used to help enchanters verify their work."
"The Hand of Jura allows one to unbind enchantments." Kanaan held out his right hand. "Imagine tearing through
many of the threads and having no idea which ends to rebind."
"You've looked at the Alabaster Arches?" I asked.
Kanaan knelt and sealed the silver circle around the omniarch. A window to another place flicked open. Beyond stood a massive black arch with white stripes. He stepped through and we followed.
The cavern beyond spread out for what seemed like miles in every direction. We looked up in awe at the Alabaster Arch before us. It easily dwarfed the one we'd seen in the control room at the Grotto.
Ambria spoke first. "It's the Grand Nexus."
Kanaan held up the crafting lens and we took turns peering through it. Like the omniarch, thousands of threads connected symbols in the stone columns, especially from a socket where a small orb might fit. It was there that I noticed the damage.
It appeared as if someone snipped the strings on a harp, leaving the loose ends to curl up on their binds. Except in this case, there were thousands of broken strings. Reconnecting them to their correct counterpart seemed impossible.
Max frowned. "Can't we match the symbol at the base of a thread to the identical symbol at the other end?"
"No," Kanaan said. "Threads are not necessarily bound to identical symbols. The magic behind the arches has long eluded even the most brilliant enchanters."
I walked across the dozens of yards separating me from the orb-shaped pocket and examined the bindings up close with the lens. The symbols seemed to hover just off the surface and grew blurry when viewed from certain angles. I recognized Cyrinthian characters, but most were something else—another language alien to me.
Each of the torn threads curled near a darkened symbol. When Victus had damaged the magical bindings, he'd simply torn through them. Either he'd assumed he could easily repair them, or had been in a hurry.
I returned to the others. "Even with the hand, we can't possibly repair this without more knowledge."
"So much for reopening the portal to Seraphina." Max crossed his arms and glared at the arch as if it was at fault. "I guess we'll never see Justin Slade or the others again."
"That's a glum outlook, Max!" Ambria tutted. "I just know there's someone in Eden who can fix this thing." She turned to me. "That means we still have to find the Hand of Jura."
"Perhaps not." Kanaan took the crafting lens from me and headed back toward the portal leading to the omniarch. "The arch is an apparatus that can open the curtain between realms. I believe there are other methods."
I stepped through the portal. The world bent like a fishbowl and snapped back into place. I waited for the others to come through and said, "Do you know of any specific ways to cross realms?"
"No." The portal winked away behind Kanaan. "But I have heard tales of broken arches carrying people into other realms."
"Using a broken arch to travel?" Max waved his hands in front of his chest. "No, thanks. I watched a documentary on the people who tested broken arches during the war and some of them vanished forever."
"There might be another way." I touched my chest where the green gem Cora gave me had once hung. Now she had it. "The realms are anchored in the Glimmer. Maybe they can be reached from there."
"We can't get into the Glimmer right now." Ambria puffed out her cheeks and released the air. "Cora closed it off until she gets her kingdom in order."
"School, magitsu, Victus, and repairing the Grand Nexus." Max blew out a sigh. "As if being a kid wasn't hard enough."
Ambria sniffed. "We're hardly kids anymore, Max. We're teenagers."
Max threw up his hands. "Even worse!"
The corner of Kanaan's lip quirked up as if amused. "The path of the young is treacherous." He closed the circle around the omniarch and summoned a portal back to the wide grassy field behind the university. "I will see you tomorrow."
We departed through the portal and gazed at the university grounds. Students bustled back and forth on last-minute chores before school started. We had already procured our textbooks to avoid the rush.
Shushiel turned to face the Dark Forest only a few yards behind us. Spider bats fluttered fitfully in the boughs of a massive oak just within the shield wall. Strange calls and shrieks echoed through the dense woods. A group of students some distance from us threw sticks and stones at the shield, shouting for the tragon to make an appearance.
"I will visit my family," Shushiel said. "I have not seen them for a week."
"How do you get through the shield?" Max asked.
She tapped the amplification gem. "Galfandor charmed it to allow me through."
I peered into the darkness, and it seemed to look back at me. "Do you ever see frogres or other monsters my father created?"
"All the time." Shushiel's mandibles twitched. "Some roam in packs, killing and eating one another. The frogres are solitary. Most live in caves. My kind prefer to live in the trees where we can catch plenty of spider bats and stay out of reach of monsters."
Ambria rubbed Shushiel's soft fur. "I would love to see where you live sometime."
"That would be wonderful." The spider bounced with excitement. "I think you would like it very much."
"Yeah, but what about the monsters?" Max shivered. "I'm not going in there without monster repellent."
Ambria laughed. "Just bring a pair of your dirty underwear, Max. That should keep the monsters away."
"Ew." I wrinkled my nose. "I don't want Max swinging his dirty underwear around me."
"I suggest you bring your brooms," Shushiel said. "Very few of the carnivorous monsters can fly."
Max snorted. "As long as they can't fly fast."
We said our goodbyes to Shushiel and headed to the university where we swung by the healing ward to check up on Ansel's condition. Percival looked up from patching a first-year's knee, his eyes scanning us for injuries.
"Are you hurt?" he asked.
I shook my head and pointed to the back room. "How is Ansel?"
"Ah." Percival patted the child on the head and promptly shooed him out of the door. "No running in the halls next time, boy," he called after him then turned to us. "I diagnosed Ansel's problem, and the prognosis isn't good."
"What does that mean?" Max said.
Percival frowned. "It means, he may never recover. He could very well die."
Chapter 12
"Die?" I rushed into the back and found my cousin staring blankly up at the ceiling. I looked around and saw he wasn't the only one in the ward. Six other people of all ages seemed to be in the same exact condition. "What's wrong with them?"
"Rather large chunks of their souls have been torn out." Percival held up a parchment with the ghostly outline of a human body that looked as if someone had taken a bite from the left side. "All the others fell sick the same way just in the past week."
Ambria took the parchment and examined it, nose wrinkled in concern. "How did it happen?"
"There are few creatures who can cause this sort of damage, and those that can, are not of this world." Percival took a leather-bound tome from a shelf in the back of the room and flipped it open to a bookmark. "At first, I thought it might be a rogue Daemos, but they simply don't devour souls in such a manner. Even with them, it takes time, and it's more like a smooth wearing away of the spirit, not a brutal bite."
I looked at the shiny black creature on the page. It resembled a spider, but with far more than eight legs. A humanoid head pressed against the carapace from the inside, a scream frozen on its agonized face. The thought that something like this had taken a chunk of my cousin's soul made me sick to my stomach.
Percival moved his hand to uncover the name—demon crawler. "It appears we have a monster on the loose."
"No, that can't be right." Max shook his head. "Crawlers don't just take a bite of a soul and let the victim live."
Percival huffed. "How would you know what crawlers do and don't do?"
"War documentaries." Max jabbed a finger at a paragraph further down the page. "Plus, it says so right there—crawlers devour the soul through a straw-like mouth, oft
en leaving bodies intact."
The healer frowned and glared at Max. "Well, it's the best theory I have at the moment. If you children are so smart, perhaps you can come up with something better."
Ambria patted Percival's hand in a soothing manner. "I think you're on the right track. These attacks must be demon related."
"Well, of course they are." Percival flipped through pages of a seemingly endless variety of hell spawn. "It must be some form of lower demon, but I simply don't have the information in this book."
"I will handle this investigation from this point on."
We spun to face the source of the voice. Percival stiffened at the sight of a thin woman, her face lined with age. "Minister Grint? Whatever are you doing here?"
"As I said, taking control of this poorly handled investigation." She looked down at the affected people, some students, others professors I recognized only because I'd seen them from time to time in the hallways or dining hall.
"Minister, I have things well in hand." Percival's chin jutted up and out in defiance. "I will accept assistance, but not interference."
"I am the health minister, boy." Grint's withered lips curled up into a sneer. "You have no say in the matter."
"This is outrageous!" Percival threw up his hands. "I am the chief healer for Arcane University. You have no right to interfere in my duties unless I have displayed gross negligence."
"He might be guilty of that," Max whispered to Ambria and me.
"Maybe we should come back later," Ambria said.
"Agreed." I slid past Percival and toward the door, but Minister Grint barred the way with her arm.
"You don't look injured, children." She bored through us with her eyes. "Why are you here?"
"Visiting friends," I said, feeling defensive and squeamish in her glare. "I hope that's all right."
"Conrad Edison." She looked at each of us in turn. "Ambria Rax. Maxwell Tiberius." A scowl turned her unfriendly face downright frightful. "I should have known you'd be involved."
Ambria's mouth dropped open. "We weren't involved in this. Our friend was injured and we came to visit him."
"Friend, hmm?" She looked around the room. "Which one?"
"Him." I pointed to Ansel.
