Crystal Doors #1 (30 page)

Gwen nibbled at her lower lip and said to Vic, “Now it’s up
to us. I’ll go first.” She walked calmly to one of the crystals, but he rushed to another one.

“You’ve got to be kidding. Don’t try to pull rank on me —”

Gwen rolled her eyes at her impulsive cousin. Ignoring him, she touched the ovoid crystal at the same time that Vic touched his. Suddenly, their testing crystals erupted with blazing, scintillating light, as if fireworks had gone off in their hands.

Vir Pecunyas stepped back, gasping. “I have never seen such a bright —”

Amazingly, the crystals held by Lyssandra, Sharif, and Tiaret also brightened tenfold. The radiance became blinding from all five beacons. Then other crystals around the gallery — those usually used for illumination and decoration — ignited as if picking up the excess energy that Gwen and Vic had unleashed.

“It is the five of you together!” Pecunyas looked at the astonished faces of Lyssandra, Sharif, and Tiaret. “You each had potential, but when added to those two, the synergy is incredible. This is unprecedented.”

Travelers and merchants who had come to the Center looking for someone to open a crystal door stared and whispered in awe. Bystanders rushed down the halls of the large building, spreading the news.

The light from the five ovoid crystals intensified, and Gwen’s instinct was to yank her hand away before the gem could explode. But she felt no danger, no heat, only a pleasurable tingling sensation all the way through her body.

Sages came running now, their multicolored robes flapping, and stopped in astonishment to watch the display of power.

Even after the students took their hands away, the crystals continued to glow.

In the eggsphere around Sharif’s neck, Piri spun and somersaulted, shimmering pink with happiness.

Tiaret’s eyes were luminous. “If we learn to make use of this power, the merlons cannot prevail against us.”

“This is so cool,” Vic said.

Lyssandra looked both shaken and filled with awe. “It is like the prophecy song we teach to little children. They sing it while they play a little game.”

“The question is,
what
is the prophecy?” Gwen asked. “What does it say?”

Lyssandra swayed to the rhythm of the words as she sang in a soft voice,

“Crystals five will shine like suns,

Thus reveal the Chosen Ones.

When the learning time is done,

Chosen Ones may choose as one,

Heralding the final fight,

Sages Dark with Sages Bright.”

Vic scratched his nose. “Sheesh, that sounds pretty serious — whatever it means. Uh, what are we supposed to do with that?”

Gwen gave Vic a punch in the shoulder. “At the moment, Dr. Distracto, I think we’ve got enough mysteries to solve without adding enigmatic prophecies to the mix. I say it’s high time we searched for some answers about our mothers.”

“Right. And try to bring my dad here while we’re at it,” Vic agreed. “Family now, prophecies later.”

“And what of the rest of us?” Lyssandra asked, looking worried. “Do we not belong together?”

Vic put one arm around the telepath and the other around Gwen. “Yup. You’re our friends. We have a lot to learn, and we need you. I have a strange feeling that you’re stuck with us.”

Gwen smiled at this unusual display from her cousin. She drew Sharif and Tiaret into the circle. “In other words, I think we just became a sort of family, too.”

REBECCA MOESTA (pronounced MESS-tuh) is the daughter of an English teacher/author/theologian, and a nurse — from whom she learned, respectively, her love of words and her love of books. Moesta, who holds an M.S. in Business Administration from Boston University, has worked in various aspects of editing, publishing, and writing for the past 20 years and has taught every grade from kindergarten through college.

Moesta is also the author or co-author of more than 30 books, including
Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Little Things,
and the award-winning
Star Wars: Young Jedi Knights
series, which she co-wrote with husband and
New York Times
bestselling author Kevin J. Anderson. A self-described “gadgetologist” Rebecca enjoys travel, movie-going, and learning about (not to mention collecting) the latest advances in electronics.

* * *

KEVIN J. ANDERSON is the author of more than eighty books, including
Captain Nemo, The Martian War, Hidden Empire, A Forest of Stars,
and many popular
Star Wars
and
X-Files
novels, as well as bestselling prequels to
Dune,
cowritten with Frank Herbert’s son Brian. He has also written dozens of comics and graphic novels for Marvel, DC, Wild-storm, Dark Horse, and Topps. He has over seventeen million books in print in 29 languages. His work has appeared on numerous “Best of the Year” lists and has won a variety of awards. In 1998, he set the Guinness World Record for “Largest Single-Author Book Signing.”

* * *

For more information on

Rebecca Moesta or Kevin J. Anderson, see

www.wordfire.com

or

www.elantya.com

Vic, Gwen and their friends

battle beneath the sea in

CRYSTAL DOORS

BOOK II

OCEAN REALM

Taken hostage by the evil merlons,

the five friends must find a way to stop their evil schemes

before all of Elantya sinks into the seas.

Coming June 2007 from

Little, Brown and Company

TURN THE PAGE TO READ AN EXCERPT.

AFTER FENDING OFF THE attack of the merlons and their battle kraken on the island, everyone in Elantya pulled together to save the city. Sages performed powerful magic. Ship captains and their crews helped dock workers extinguish burning wrecks and salvage the damaged ships wallowing in the water.

“Sheesh, this looks like the day after Pearl Harbor,” Vic Pierce said.

Students from the Citadel — a magical and scientific training center for young people from diverse worlds — threw themselves into the recovery efforts. Although putting out fires, assessing the damage, and restoring the island city were immense tasks, each challenge gave the students a practical way to apply the new skills they were learning.

Hands wet with warm seawater, Vic tried to wipe soot
from his cheeks, though he succeeded more in smearing than cleaning himself. He was tired and sweaty. His strange Elantyan clothes were soaked. “Hard work now,
more
hard work later,” he said with a groan, then grinned at his cousin Gwen. “On the other hand, it sure beats
homework.
Back home on Earth, Mrs. Dorman is probably handing out Sentence Structure worksheets right now.” Vic and Gwen — born on the same night to mothers who were sisters and fathers who were identical twins — were in the same grade at Stephen Hawking High, back in California.

Gwen waded out from the shore up to her knees and wrestled with a floating beam blasted from a sunken cargo ship. Tossing her blond hair back, she nodded. “Probably. And Mr. Christensen would be assigning us a term paper on Prince Henry the Navigator.”

The island of Elantya, magically raised up from the ocean floor thousands of years earlier, served as a hub at the center of an arrangement of crystal doors that linked fantastic worlds. The native merlons, however, had long resented the presence of this unnatural island in their world. They considered it a blemish on their perfect ocean.

Recently, merlon aggression had grown extravagant. The aquatic creatures had attacked and sunk several cargo ships, including the
Golden Walrus,
a vessel used for training students. Vic, Gwen, and their friends had barely survived the ordeal, and Vic suspected there was much more to the merlons’ behavior than simply being unfriendly neighbors.

Vic helped Gwen carry the splintered wooden beam to shore and add it to the growing pile of debris removed from the
turquoise harbor waters. “I wish my dad were here ,” he couldn’t help saying. Dr. Carlton Pierce had been left behind in California when Vic and Gwen accidentally plunged through a crystal door to this magical world, where the Elantyans were embroiled in a struggle against the fierce undersea merlons.

Vic caught the quick expression of sadness that filled Gwen’s dramatic violet eyes. Her own parents were dead, killed in a car accident, which the cousins now knew had probably not been an accident. Vic and Gwen’s coming to Elantya hadn’t been a complete accident, either. Since their arrival they had encountered too many clues — about their mothers and the potential Vic and Gwen seemed to have inherited from them — to be certain anymore what was coincidence and what was destiny.

Mystery surrounded much of what had happened to the cousins since Vic’s father had warned them of a strange danger. Cap Pierce had been arranging crystals in the solarium of their California home when Vic and Gwen had unintentionally stumbled through a crystal door and found themselves here in Elantya, with no obvious way home.

Smoke rose in dark plumes that the sea breezes dissipated, leaving the sky a clear blue that seemed almost too cheery for the exhausting work they all faced.

As Vic and Gwen started back into the water, a shadow passed overhead. Vic looked up to see a purple rectangle trimmed in gold tassels: the magic carpet ridden by their friend Ali el Sharif, a young prince from the flying city of Irrakesh.

Sharif called down to them, “That battle kraken caused a great deal of damage. At least most of the fires are out now.” He held the clear eggsphere of his nymph djinni Piri over the edge of the carpet, so that she could get a good look, as well. The tiny fairylike creature glowed blue with earnest concentration. Sharif brought the carpet down closer to his friends. He rolled Piri up and down his arms, contact juggling, while the diminutive feminine figure inside the globe twinkled pink with enjoyment. Sharif grinned at his small friend. “Piri and I have a good view from above. I count sixteen sunken war galleys, fishing boats, and cargo ships, including two large vessels near the mouth of the harbor. Those will need to be moved first.”

Sunken ships posed a significant hazard. Many types of sailing ships came through the crystal doors from other worlds. While some had shallow drafts, others had hulls that extended so deeply into the water that they would scrape the wreckage and possibly sink themselves.

Gwen nodded. “In other words, if fishing and cargo ships can’t use the main harbor, Elantya might not get enough food and supplies.”

“I will circle around once more, then report to the sages and help them decide what to do next,” Sharif said.

“Can’t they figure that out for themselves?” Gwen said. “I’m pretty sure they already know about the ships blocking the harbor, and we could use another hand down here.”

“I am sorry, Gwenya, but my observation duties are too important.” After playing with Piri a little more, he tucked her back into the mesh sack that hung around his neck and flew off to circle the harbor again.

Vic groaned. “I guess he’d rather stay above the mess than get his hands or his pantaloons dirty.” Although Sharif avoided referring to the fact that he was a prince, his pride frequently reminded them.

So they did the work themselves.

Out in the water up to her chest, a lean brown-skinned young girl from Afirik was wrestling with a tangle of ship debris much larger than she should have been able to handle. Tiaret turned her amber eyes toward them and motioned with a hand. “I could use your assistance, my friends. Together, the three of us can manage this and I… I am reluctant to move out into deeper water. I believe the other end is caught in something.”

Vic scratched his nose. “Sure, how hard could it be?”

“The question is, will it be as easy as you think?” Gwen said. “But naturally we’ll help.” They dove in and swam past Tiaret to scope out the intertwined beam, ropes, and broken boards she was trying to retrieve.

Tiaret had never learned to swim. On the dry savannahs of her world, the rainy season was short, and for most of the year watering holes were little more than shallow ponds. When she left Afirik with her master Kundu, her ship had been attacked by merlons en route. Vic and Sharif had arrived on the flying carpet to save Tiaret as killer sharks closed in. No one else had survived.

Because she was a strong girl and an excellent fighter, Tiaret never liked to admit to any weakness. Although she meant to become proficient when the harbor restoration was finished, for now she still couldn’t swim. Since her arrival in
Elantya, however, she had learned to enjoy wading in the surf, so she was becoming more comfortable in the ocean.

While Gwen and Tiaret struggled to pull the floating wood loose, Vic dove under the water, keeping his eyes open to see what had snagged the wreckage. The harbor water was murky with silt, stirred up by the recovery operations. Feeling as well as seeing his way, he found a mammoth scooplike object dragging on the floor of the harbor. Its jagged edge had dredged up sand and mud, then lodged in a cluster of rocks. He felt with his hand, located where the wooden rib was connected, then swam a little deeper. The thing felt like a giant seashell, coated with something slippery.