Ancient Fire (12 page)

Oh, no. The scrolls are gone. Except for one,
stuck in the bottom of the bag.

I sit up on the ground, shivering, and it
occurs to me that all I have left in the world—in
this
world — are my pants (which are torn, by the
way), my shirt, and one shoe. And worst of all, no cap. Does this
mean I’m stuck here?

Tiberius looks like maybe he’s ready to throw
me back down again. “Suddenly, you’re no longer so powerful, are
you, warlock?”

“Tiberius!”

He must have followers all over the city.
Three men run down the main boulevard toward the shore, making
their way to him, jumping over rubble on the ground. Two of them
hold torches, and the third one, a spear.

As they step over the smoking ruins next to
us, I realize that whatever building or structure was here, it was
probably standing yesterday when I flew over it with Clyne. Was
that really less than a day ago?

Tiberius’s followers make a big fuss over
him, checking to see if he’s all right. They’re whispering, so the
lingo-spot isn’t picking it all up, but they’re pointing to me, and
I hear stray phrases like “boy-witch,” and “not much longer,”
neither of which make me happy. After they get done talking about
me, they start pointing at the lighthouse.

But the lighthouse is dark, so I wonder what
they think they see.

Then I hear what sounds like “Thea” coming
from one of them, and Tiberius gets even more excited.

Spear-man gives me a small, quick jab in the
shoulder to get me moving.

I wonder if this is what war is like — being
this scared, and not knowing if you’re going to make it. I limp
along, hopping a lot on my one shoe, trying to avoid all the sharp
pieces of wood and hot ashes with the other, bare foot.

We’re heading back toward the lighthouse. And
then we stop: Suddenly, brilliantly, the

lighthouse flame roars to life! So brightly,
none of us can even look directly at the beam. Someone’s in
there…

Thea!

I hope.

Alive! And so’s the tower. And so are
Tiberius and his henchmen, who’re now running to get there. I do a
full-speed hop to try and get there ahead of them.

But that makes Spear-man unhappy. He catches
up with me and shoves me hard with the blunt end of his weapon
again, making me stumble forward, right on my bare foot.

He makes it clear that next time it won’t be
the blunt end. As I pick myself up, my hand comes across the
surviving baseball card in my shirt and I hear Tiberius hissing
something about “the witch” again, and I get an idea.

By the time we get to the rickety footbridge
leading to the island, more people have fallen in with us. Some are
followers of Tiberius; others just seem to be scared, townsfolk
drawn to the one beam of light that’s not going to hurt them.

I’m pretty sure I could slip away in the
crowd pouring off the bridge before Spear-man could come after me,
but then I think of how Clyne stayed with us in the tunnel when he
didn’t have to. I guess that’s what makes all this different from
Barnstormers, or any of the Comnet games: There’s no reloading or
starting over. Instead, there’s just living with every decision you
make.

BOOM!

Some of Tiberius’s gang are already here,
pounding on the door with a makeshift battering ram, a piece of
wood they’ve salvaged from the burning city.

The door to the lighthouse is already
starting to splinter. If it is Thea who’s in there, she’s in
trouble.

Tiberius, Spear-man, and everybody else wait
for the door to crack so they can charge inside. Even though none
of us can look directly at the light overhead, enough of it spills
over our faces that I can see everybody is excited in a strange
way. Like the look I’d see on Mr. Howe’s face, sometimes, when he’d
talk about Dad’s work being used to make new weapons.

My hands slip around my baseball card
again—it’s the McGwire ’gram—and while everybody’s distracted, I
make my move.

I scream and run in front of the battering
ram, putting myself between it and the door.

Everyone stops for a moment, because my
action is so unexpected. “People!” I shout. “Behold!” I’m not sure
any of them understand exactly what I’m saying, but that sounds
like wizard talk to me, and they all look when I pull out the
McGwire card and hold it up. What they’re seeing is the ’gram
playing McGwire’s steroid confession, but that’s what I tell
them.

“Genie!” I scream. “Genie!”

I hear the word
djinn
repeated back slowly by one or two of them, so I
know some of them get it, and they look at each other, and then
back at me. “Wizard!” I yell, pointing at myself. Then I wave the
McGwire card around some more, letting them think there’s a little
shrunken man captured inside. I hope they’ll accept the idea that
not every genie has to live in a lamp.

I point to myself again — “Wizard!” — then
the card — “Genie!” — then put my hand on the lighthouse door.
“No.”

I hope I’ve made my case and scared them off.
I don’t have any backup plan.

At a minimum, I’ve succeeded in confusing
everyone. They’ve all stopped what they were doing. I think some of
them understand what I’m threatening. Or pretending to
threaten.

I keep standing in front of the lighthouse.
My foot hurts.

Tiberius walks up. “Boy. Your magic won’t
work here. Your tricks are no good.” But he doesn’t seem a hundred
percent sure of that and keeps a little distance between us. I
shake the McGwire card at him, like a rattle. He takes a step
back.

It’s a standoff for about thirty seconds.
Then he decides to call my bluff. “If you have any other magic
left, you’d better use it now.” He turns to face the crowd. “Seize
the wizard and hold him! We’ll burn him with the witch! We’ll burn
them in this tower!”

A lot of the townspeople aren’t sure. But
Spear-man and some of the battering-ram guys are. They move toward
me.

“Wizard, wizard, wizard!” I shout, scooting
away from them. “I’m a wizard!”

But Tiberius’s henchmen are still coming at
me. In another second or two they’ll have me cornered. “I
am…a…wizard!” I yell again.

But they’ve all stopped looking at me, and I
realize the lighthouse door is open. Thea is standing there.

“Wazir
,” she
says.

Everyone’s amazed to see her. She walks right
up to me, right in front of Tiberius. “We pronounce the word
‘
wazir
’ here.”

“You’re alive,” I say.

“So far,” she replies. Then she turns to the
crowd. “The lighthouse on Pharos burns again. But it is up to all
of you”—and she points to the whole tattered, smoky, confused,
angry crowd—“to decide what kind of light falls on Alexandria.
His
”—and here she points to Tiberius—“or
your own.”

That’s it. That’s where she leaves it. Now
the crowd is totally confused—they actually have to make a
choice.

“Man,” I whisper to her. “You’re really
brave.”

“I am terrified,” she says, “but I heard you
down here. You too are brave, boy wizard. I decided to stand with
you.”

For a moment, it seems like Thea’s tactic is
working even better than my wizard trick with the baseball
card.

But only for a moment. “How long,” Tiberius
says in a loud voice, “will we let witches lie to us?” He allows
the question to sink in for effect. “Get them both!”

“Genie, genie, genie!” I scream, hoping that
might scare enough of them, but nobody seems to be buying it now.
Spear-man has his weapon raised, and I don’t know if he’s going to
get me or Thea first. I’m scared, too, crying really, wondering how
grownups ever got to be so messed up to begin with. I squeeze my
eyes shut. “Genie…,” I whisper, clutching the card.

“Aakkkk! Ouch! Wet!
Hello!
”

It’s Clyne, coming out of the sea, bounding
toward the lighthouse. You’d almost swear there was a smile on his
long gray face.

Tons of people scream and run away.

“Bad night,” Clyne says. “Strange
mammals.”

“Dragon!” Tiberius spits, but he’s definitely
backing away, too.

“Big flood,” Clyne says to us. “
Gkkkk
… Uncertain if you mammals thrive in water or
not. Glad you’re dry now.”

“I’m not exactly dry,” I say, “but I’m all
right. What about you?”

“Been swimming awhile. Found this.” He holds
up the waterlogged Seals cap. “Know it emits…
tk-tk-tk
…a small time disturbance. Time goofs can be
traced!” He pulls what looks like a small Geiger counter out of his
jumpsuit. It makes loud clicks and everyone left in the crowd who
didn’t flee at “Dragon!” jumps back.

“Full of sad thoughts when I found your head
garment but not your head. Then my eyes glanced Thea’s mighty
blaze. Here.” He tosses the cap at me. “
Kk-kang!
Can’t travel time without a swift key to
Dimension Five.”

I put the cap on and cold seawater runs down
my face. Most of the protective Thickskin is gone, and I can
already feel the familiar tingling.

“No!” Tiberius shouts, as I begin fading
away. He reaches and grabs Thea, who scratches long red welts
across his face, and I have just enough time to grab her back.

We’re holding on to each other, and now it’s
my turn to act like a timeship. When I get jerked across the Fifth
Dimension, Thea comes with me.

It’s only Clyne who gets left behind.

Chapter Fifteen

Eli: Many Happy Returns

August 23, 2019 C.E.

Thea and I return, materializing just outside
Moonglow at night. We fade in next to a series of new generators
that have been installed behind the building. They’ve really built
the place up since I’ve been gone, but how long has that been?

I’m feeling a little wobbly, as usual, but
Thea is worse — shivering, her teeth chattering, trying to pull the
remains of her robes around her. We’re both still soaked—more than
sixteen hundred years after getting wet.

“Where…? Where…?” she manages to ask.

“Home,” I say. Meaning, my home, or what’s
been passing for home ever since Mom vanished and Dad and I left
Princeton.

I’m still tingling. I need to get the cap off
my head before it sends me back through the time stream, but I
don’t want to touch it myself. Hurrying, I take Thea’s hand and use
it to yank the Seals cap off my head.

“What are you doing?” she asks, pulling her
arm back.

“I’m sorry. The cap and me, we’re two parts
of a whole. It creates a reaction . . . that causes my time
traveling. If I want to stay put, I can’t wear it.”

“I am traveling with a wizard,” she sighs,
“who has an enchanted hat he cannot control.”

Since I don’t have any Thickskin left, I take
a stick, lift up the cap, and hide it in the hollow of an oak a few
yards away.

I turn back and squint into the bright lights
surrounding the winery. Realizing how exposed we are, I tap Thea on
the shoulder to get her to go a little deeper into the grove of
trees with me, until we figure out what to do.

But she’s mesmerized by the electric lights.
Of course. She’s never seen them before.

I hear heavy boot steps. “Come on!” I tell
her. But she doesn’t want to move. “Come on!” Reluctantly, she goes
with me. Huddling behind a tree, I see a couple soldiers walk by in
uniforms I don’t recognize from DARPA. The situation at Moonglow
must have grown bigger and more serious, and I figure it’d be
better if Thea didn’t come to Mr. Howe’s attention at all.

“Listen.” I try to whisper, but it comes out
faster and louder than I want. “I have a hideout here in the
woods.”

“Where?” she asks again, and it occurs to me
that so much has happened to Thea, she might still think she’s back
in Alexandria somewhere, having a really strange dream. One with
electric lights in it.

“This way,” I tell her. We race past more
oaks in the dark, stumbling a little, though her footing is at
least as steady as mine. She must be feeling a little bit better,
or she’s a really great sleepwalker.

When we reach Wolf House, I show her how to
climb through the holes in the fence, and we step carefully around
the stone ruins. I take Thea down to where the basement was
supposed to be—a big, boxy area that was used for storing coal. Now
it’s more like a fort, where you can look out and see anybody who’s
coming before they see you.

But the old stone walls don’t warm her at
all, and she still shivers. “We need to build a fire,” she
says.

“I don’t have a lighter or matches,” I tell
her.

“You mean, something to spark the flame?” She
looks around, then gathers some sticks and rocks in her hands. “Let
me.”

Thea wipes her face and for the first time
really takes in her surroundings—the trees, the crumbling house.
“Your world isn’t so different from mine,” she says. “Not quite as
built up, maybe.”

She hasn’t seen a traffic jam yet, or a crowd
at a ballgame, or the skyscrapers in a million different places,
like San Francisco or New York. The world seems pretty built up to
me. I hope I get a chance to show her those things someday.

Right now, we have more pressing needs. Like
getting warm. And getting help. I have to figure out a way to get
my dad here to explain what’s going on. “Thea, I have to go back
there to the lab.”

“You’re leaving me?” She looks a little
confused, like maybe she’s lapsed back into that dream state. “What
is a ‘lab’?”

“I have to get help. From my father. And a
lab is a place where we do experiments. Science.”

“Like a gymnasium?”

“Like a gymnasium. You should be okay here
for a little while. Hide if you need to. I won’t be long.”

She gives me a look that says I hope not. I
can tell even in the dark.