Balance Keepers #1: The Fires of Calderon (5 page)

“Memory Wipers. If you ever leave the Core for good, and probably you will,” she said, “the song they sing will make you forget everything you saw and all you did here.”

Leroy exhaled and leaned forward, elbows onto his knobby knees.

“I’d like to forget that entire ride. Maybe we’ve been here before, but we just can’t remember it.”

The snake woman let out a bark of a laugh. “You clue in fast, for a newbie.” She pulled out three rugged backpacks and set them on the counter of the booth.

“One for each of you and you’re on your way.”

Leroy reached past Albert and grabbed the bags, one at a time, and handed them out.

“What’s this stuff for?” Birdie asked as she started to open the top of her pack.

“And what
are
you?” Albert asked. “Some kind of witch or something?”

“I’m Lucinda,” the woman said, cackling. “You might say I’m in the supply-and-demand business. Didn’t that Path Hider tell you
anything
?”

The snake hissed in response as Lucinda pointed her ring-covered hand at the bags on their laps. “Clothes, boots, essentials, a trinket or two. Everything you’ll need.”

Albert untied the leather lace that held the pack closed. Inside, there were a pair of boots, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a few pairs of socks. Underwear. Deeper inside the bag he found something more interesting: an egg-shaped compass that wobbled when Albert held it out on his palm.

“That’s a lifesaver the first few days inside the Core,” Lucinda explained. “In time you’ll find your way around the place, but everyone knows the Core’s got a tricky mind of its own. It likes to get the newcomers lost. Just say where you want to go, and the Core Compass will show you the way.”

Birdie was digging in her bag. She pulled out a silk sack filled with strange metal orbs that fit in the middle of her palm. She held one of them out.

“Ah, yes,” Lucinda said. “One of my specialties. Break one of those over someone’s head and you’ll get a surprise.”

Birdie didn’t wait for additional explanation. She smashed one on top of Leroy’s head like an egg. There was a crack, then a flash of fire, and in an instant, a tiny white bird appeared. Farnsworth wagged his tail at the bird, as if he wanted to play. The little bird chirped, ruffled its feathers, and flew into Birdie’s lap.

“It’s a Floppywhippet,” Lucinda said as she smiled. “It will produce bubble-gum eggs for the next few minutes. Then it will fly away and never be seen again.”

Birdie looked a little unsure, but she smiled and stroked the bird’s tiny head anyway. It laid a tiny orange egg in her hand and chirped happily, rolling the egg forward with its beak.

“It wants you to eat it,” Leroy said.

Albert thought birds were cool enough, but this was getting a little dicey. Then again, the egg did look like candy.

“I’ll give you five bucks if you eat one,” Albert said to Birdie.

“I’ll do it,” Leroy said. “I’m starving.” He popped an egg into his mouth and began chewing. “It’s good! Like sherbet!” The bird cooed and preened.

During the next two minutes the Floppywhippet laid six more eggs in various colors and flavors, and Leroy found a small metal sculpture of a cat in his pack that Lucinda said would give him incredible balance when he rubbed its head.

“But it only works once,” she warned. “So use it when you really need it.”

The Floppywhippet fluttered away into the darkness.

“I’m gonna miss that little guy,” Leroy said as he popped the last gum ball in his mouth. (It was bright yellow and lemon flavored.) “Where are we going?”

“Questions, questions,” Lucinda said. She reached over and gave Farnsworth a small blue bone, which he started to gnaw on.

“Helps his eyes glow brighter,” Lucinda said. “Now off you go!”

Then Lucinda knocked three times on the side of the gondola, and whispered some strange words that Albert couldn’t quite hear or understand. Albert felt the gondola shiver beneath his feet and start to move again.

“Good-bye!” Birdie shouted behind her.

They picked up speed. Soon they passed over a glittering green river, and shortly after, went through a waterfall that soaked the top of the gondola. After they took one last heart-pounding drop down into darkness, their ride came to an end.

Albert turned to look out the window just as the gondola came to a stop across from another floating orange platform.
What is it with these things?
Two rusted metal doors stood behind the platform, embedded in the cave walls.

“Whoa,” Leroy said. “Check it out.”

Farnsworth was so excited he wriggled out of Albert’s grasp and hopped out of the gondola, onto the orange platform. He turned and barked at them as if to say,
What are you waiting for?

“I guess this is our stop,” Albert said, throwing his backpack over his shoulder. He was about to climb out of the gondola when it started to move again, heading slowly back in the direction from which it came.

“Better move quick!” Leroy said. “I have a feeling the Path Hider would just send us back here again. And I don’t think I can handle that ride twice in one day.”

All three jumped the narrow expanse that separated the gondola from the platform, and watched as the rickety contraption turned the corner and disappeared.

“Now what?” Birdie asked.

Albert shrugged.

Farnsworth ran to the doors and starting scratching, his bark echoing through the cavern.

The doors started to quake. They opened forward slowly, groaning as if they hadn’t moved in years. They stopped halfway open. A shadow emerged, indiscernible at first. Albert took a half step back. This could be a warlock, or a giant, or the witch he’d been wondering about all day.

But when the shadow stepped out into the light of Farnsworth’s eyes, Albert felt himself relax.

The figure that came out was one of the most normal-looking people Albert had seen all day.

Unless you counted the miniature blue dragon perched on his shoulder.

T
he young man standing before them was tall and lean, with dark brown hair that flipped out just past his ears.

“I’ve been waiting for you three all day,” the young man said with a British accent. “I thought you’d fallen off the trolley.”

Leroy glanced at Albert with a worried look on his face. “Apparently people sometimes fall out of the trolley.”

“Must have been our lucky day,” Albert said.

“I’m thinking we should talk about this later,” Birdie said, elbowing Albert in the ribs.

The young man smiled and went on.

“I’m Trey. And you three must be Albert, Leroy, and Birdie.”

Trey bowed low to the ground, the little blue dragon on his shoulder somehow managing to hang on.

The dragon was just like Albert had always imagined a dragon would be—with scales and claws and wings—only it was the size of a parrot. The tiny beast turned toward Trey, opened its mouth, and sent a blue flame into the side of Trey’s head.

“Cold, just like the flames you’ve seen so far,” Trey said.

“I used to want a pony or a unicorn,” Birdie said. “Now I just want one of those.”

“Alfin usually stays in Cedarfell with some of the other creatures,” Trey said, sensing their curiosity about the dragon. “But I thought you’d like to see her. And she does enjoy getting out once in a great while.”

Leroy took a step closer to Albert. “Can we trust this guy?” he whispered into Albert’s ear.

They looked down from Trey to Farnsworth, who was sitting at Trey’s feet, wagging his little tail. Farnsworth hadn’t done them any harm so far. In fact, he’d led Albert to the coolest place he’d ever been in his entire life. The dog had a taste for adventure, as far as Albert was concerned.

“Farnsworth seems to like him,” Albert answered, with a shrug.

Alfin suddenly took flight and disappeared through the half-open door, from which a warm glow was spilling. Trey looked down at the three of them (except for Leroy, who nearly matched his height).

“What you’re about to see is Balance Keeper business. It stays here.”

“What’s a Balance Keeper?” Birdie asked.

Trey had a mischievous look in his eye as he answered.

“
You’re
a Balance Keeper. So are Albert and Leroy. You just don’t know it yet.”

Albert was more confused than he had been in the Path Hider’s tree. What the heck
was
a Balance Keeper? And how did Trey know their names?

“What if we want to leave?” Leroy asked, swallowing the lump in his throat. “What then?”

Trey lowered his chin in Leroy’s direction.

“One thing I can promise you right now,” Trey answered. “You’re definitely not going to want to leave.”

With that, Trey reached over to the door, slipped his hand through the crack, and pulled it wide open.

Albert had lived in the country with his dad and the city with his mom, so he’d known what it was like to bounce between two very different worlds. But now he’d entered a third kind of world, and as the doors opened wide, Albert felt his jaw drop.

It was like he’d stepped into the world of a fantasy video game.

The room—
no, the cave
—was as tall as it was wide, and as Albert stared up at the massive iron chandelier that hung from the ceiling, he began to feel impossibly small.

It wasn’t just the hugeness of the cave that surprised him. It was the fact that it was full of
people.
Hundreds of them. They were normal looking, not dressed in warlock cloaks or miner’s hats, but in average clothes like shorts and T-shirts, though some of the shirts did have special markings. They all seemed to be wearing boots identical to the ones in Albert’s pack.

People were crisscrossing the floor in all directions like ants single-mindedly fulfilling their tasks. Some of them carried round maps. Some wore hard hats and had grease stains on their faces. A boy with a broom moved past, sweeping up dust on the cave floor. A group of kids ran by, laughing and chasing one another.

Albert knew he would never forget what happened next: The whole place went so still and quiet Albert could hear his own breathing. Everyone stopped and stared at Albert and his new friends. And then, after getting a good look at the new recruits, they all went back to whatever it was they were doing.

“Do I have bed head or something?” Albert asked, matting his hair down in case it was poking out in seven different directions.

“Well at least it’s not full of cyclopses and monsters,” Leroy said. He wiped off his glasses, as if to make sure what he was seeing in the cave was really there. “I was worried about that.”

“Me too,” Birdie said, glancing up at Leroy. “And I hate cyclopses. Like, for real.”

As Albert watched, he noticed that some of the people wore necklaces, thick, black cords on which hung white Tiles with black symbols. They looked like the very same Tiles that Pap and the porch buddies played with outside the post office.
Odd,
Albert thought,
but not entirely surprising, now that I think about it.

He tried to watch specific people, but everyone walked in different directions, some disappearing down smaller, dimly lit tunnels that vanished into darkness.

Leroy nudged Albert. “I want one of
those
,” he said, and pointed to a boy holding a giant three-pronged fork with blue goo oozing from its tips. “What
is
this place?”

Trey followed Leroy’s gaze out into the chaos, a sly look on his face.

“You’ve arrived in the Main Chamber of the Core,” he said, stepping past Albert, Leroy, and Birdie with his hands spread wide. “You’re many miles under the surface of the earth.”

“It’s so . . . ,” Albert started, but he couldn’t find the words to describe how incredible it all was.

“The Core tends to leave new arrivals speechless,” Trey said. “You’re not the first.”

A boy with floppy blond hair and a silver-gray T-shirt ran past. A silver bird with long, curly feathers that stretched to the floor sat on his shoulder.

“Newbies!” the boy shouted, as he gave Albert a high five. “Sweet!”

The boy crossed over an old, stone bridge that arched to a high point in the middle, like the tip of a triangle. A glittering silver stream ran beneath it. Albert scanned the room. The streams jutted outward in different directions from a massive iron wheel that spun slowly in the very middle of the cave floor. The streams ran toward three doors, under which they seemed to disappear. Each of the doors had its own unique symbol embedded into it—like a symbol on a Tile, but these were far larger, far more ornate, as if they had been carved long ago by someone with very skilled hands.

“The water is one of the many things you’ll love about the Core,” Trey said, noticing Albert’s eyes growing wide at the sight of two boys diving into the depths of a shimmering pool. Trey pointed out the three doors, right where each meandering stream ended and disappeared into the cave walls. “You’ll learn about what lies behind them, soon enough.”

The same wide pipes they’d seen in the Path Hider’s room were scattered like vines across the walls and ceiling. Buttons and wheels and strange knobs were all over the walls.

Trey started to lead Albert and his friends through the Core. Suddenly, some sort of giant creature ran past. Birdie let out a little shriek.

It was an oversized black cat, and at the sound of Birdie’s voice, the creature turned. It stared at her with three yellow eyes the size of Ping-Pong balls. It started to purr, the sound so loud it reminded Albert of a motorcycle starting up in the city.

“He’s Professor Asante’s companion creature,” Trey said. “Best not to touch him, or look into his eyes for too long. Cats can be unpredictable.”

There was, it seemed, an endless array of fantastical things in the Core.

“What’s that?” Albert heard himself ask, pointing at a strange cloud of blue dust that erupted when a girl threw something small and silver across the cave.

“Are those monkeys hanging from the ceiling, or something else?” Leroy asked.

“Is that a
talking
frog?” Birdie asked from Albert’s right.

Trey shook his head and smiled.

“All your questions will be answered in due time,” he said, herding the three of them along like lost children. He looked toward the high ceiling as if it might tell him the time. “It would be best not to show up late for your introduction. First impressions are only made once.”

Albert fell in step with the rest of them and thought about what a strange day he’d had. The Core had been here all this time, with all these people, right under
Herman
. . . and Albert had never known about it. Judging by the looks on Leroy’s and Birdie’s faces, they hadn’t either. It was like discovering a hidden treasure in the attic of your own house—always there, but not quite visible unless you really
looked
.

“This way, this way.” Trey’s voice pulled Albert back to attention.

They headed down a long, barely lit tunnel, away from the noise of the people rushing about. Farnsworth appeared again, running past Albert’s untied shoelace, and stopped before a closed door.

“Now listen carefully,” Trey said, bending down to scratch behind Farnsworth’s ears. The dog’s eyes lit up as he barked happily. “When you go in, show some respect. The Professor is always busy. But he’s set aside time just for you.”

“Who’s the Professor?” Leroy asked, fixing his baseball cap just so on top of his head.

Trey thought a moment before answering. “You might say he’s my boss. You’ll be learning quite a lot from him.”

Oh, great,
Albert thought.
It’s summer, and we’re about to have professors?

Trey turned away from them and knocked lightly on the door. Then he opened it just enough to slip inside, and left them standing in the tunnel alone.

“Still think we made the right choice?” Leroy asked as the door closed behind Trey. Farnsworth yipped up at them, as if he’d understood the question.

“Farnsworth thinks the place is all right,” Birdie said, and reached down to pet the dog’s soft fur. The dog thumped his tail and licked Birdie’s hand. “At first I wasn’t so sure. A place like this shouldn’t exist. But I’m totally glad it does.”

“And now we’re all here,” Leroy mused, smiling at her as he touched one of the cool, blue flames on the wall beside them. “It’s like magic.”

Birdie nodded. “Do you guys
believe
in magic? I didn’t think I did, until today.”

Albert nodded, and pointed at Farnsworth’s glowing eyes. “If that’s not magic, if this whole
place
isn’t magic, then I don’t know what is.”

The door creaked open in front of them, and they all whirled around. Trey poked his head out.

“The Professor will see you now.”

One by one they filed through the door, Farnsworth right on Albert’s heels.

Albert had seen a lot of strange things today. He’d even felt like he was floating inside of a dream. But what lay behind the door took his breath away all over again.

Across the room, a glowing blue waterfall tumbled out of an impossibly high ceiling, water pooling on the cave floor. Bright yellow-and-purple birds danced around the waterfall, singing a lively song that made Albert wish he’d worked a little harder in choir class.

“Whoa,” Leroy said, or at least, that’s what Albert thought he said. The sound of the rumbling water was so loud he couldn’t really be sure. Albert followed Farnsworth, Leroy, and Birdie across a raised pathway, closer to the waterfall, where a fine mist landed on Albert’s freckled nose.

The pathway led behind the waterfall and Farnsworth darted ahead, running off to greet whoever—or
whatever—
lay hidden behind a series of curved walls. Albert’s heart started to beat faster, like the times when he’d seen scary movies. He felt like something awful would jump out from behind each corner he passed.

It wasn’t the boogeyman around the corner, though.

Behind an ancient oak desk sat a man in a shimmering green jacket. He was scribbling something on a long piece of parchment paper.

The man looked up, set the pen down, and smiled.

Albert gulped. “Dad?”