Crystal Doors #2: Ocean Realm (No. 2) (15 page)

Finally, beside her she saw Vic also being towed along by a shark. He stirred, still regaining consciousness from the ordeal in the tower. She wondered what the marks on her wrist meant — were they symbols of ownership, a method of controlling captives, or some sort of runes?

When Vic woke up and looked around, he groaned. The sharks swam swiftly, and they must already have covered a great distance from the merlon city. “Sheesh, now I know what a balloon feels like on the end of a string,” he said. Gwen could have sworn that if the two of them hadn’t been in great pain and held captive by evil merlons and a sinister dark sage, her cousin would have been enjoying this.

“How’s your wrist?” he asked. “Mine feels like it’s been through a meat grinder.”

Gwen gave him a faint smile. “I think someone poured acid on mine.”

Their journey continued for what seemed like hours, past swirling schools of fish, distant merlon settlements, and colorful coral reefs that went by like blurry pictures taken through the window of a speeding car.

More than once, Vic demanded, “Where are you taking us?” but the merlon guards ignored him. When at last they reached an underwater seaweed forest, Azric was there already, waiting.

The merlon guards unclipped the rings from the sharks’ fins and let the predators swim away. Gripping the seaweed ropes, the warriors allowed the cousins enough play that they could move a little, but not enough to reach Azric.

The immortal wizard’s mismatched eyes gave the two cousins a sad, apologetic look. “I wish I could release you, I really do. From your bonds, I mean. But there are certain things one simply cannot leave to chance. Your new tattoos, for example, and the lesson I am about to teach.” He folded his hands, with his index fingers extended and pressed together in a steeple. “If I find you to be obedient, we may be able to dispense with the restraints in future lessons.”

Gwen and Vic exchanged a meaningful look. Both knew that if they hoped to escape, they needed to play along and convince the dark sage that he had their full cooperation, without actually helping Azric with any of his plans.

Azric seemed both eager and pleased. “Now, then, you two do know that you are Keys, don’t you?”

Gwen said, “All students at the Citadel get tested.”

“Yup, and we sure lit up the crystals,” Vic added. “But you knew that already, or you wouldn’t have been so keen to kidnap us.”

“True, true,” Azric went on. “But I believe that you both inherited a rare ability from your mothers, an ability possessed by only one in ten thousand Keys.

“You two are Master Keys, able to open any crystal door to any world that was not sealed in the Great Closure,” Azric continued, as if he were revealing a great secret. Curious in spite of themselves, the twin cousins listened intently. Vic cocked an eyebrow at Gwen with a look that said, Now this is interesting.

“Impressive enough, certainly, but there’s more.” Azric smiled at them like a benevolent teacher. “If the prophesy is correct, you two are greater than Keys, greater even than Master Keys. Like your mothers, you can be seal breakers. They wore xyridium medallions exactly like yours — though alas, the charms are useless in the hands of anyone who doesn’t have the potential.”

Fingering the medallions that hung around their necks — the only things they wore, aside from their brevis — Gwen and Vic exchanged a curious glance.

“There’s a prophecy that goes,

Brothers twin and sisters twain,

Ancient lines of blood entwine,

To begin the new campaign,

Sundered worlds to realign.

“I now believe that the ‘entwined blood’ refers to the two of you. And that realigning sundered — or sealed off — worlds is your true purpose.” The twin cousins exchanged uneasy glances as Azric continued. “You have the power, Vic and Gwen, to reopen the crystal doors to a universe of worlds that were foolishly closed off ages ago.”

“In other words, you think we can force open the doors so that your evil armies can come swarming through,” Gwen said.

Azric seemed infinitely patient. “I mean, you could help rescue entire worlds, entire civilizations that have been quarantined for far too long. Think of all those poor worlds isolated in the Great Closure and never able to visit other places, like Elantya. Surely they don’t deserve to be locked away from all the benefits of knowledge and culture that other worlds share through the crystal doors? Earth was one of the worlds sealed off in the Great Closure, you know. Think of how much your own people could have benefited. There aren’t any ‘evil armies’ waiting there to swarm through.”

“All right, I’ll concede the point . . . for now,” Gwen said, careful not to lay it on too thick.

“So if Earth was blocked off, then our mothers must have forced open the crystal door because they’re seal breakers?” Vic mused. “But how did you get there, unless you’re a seal breaker yourself?”

“Ah, such intelligence and curiosity! I can see I wasn’t wrong about you two.” He smiled warmly again. “I was not far from your mothers when they broke the seal to Earth’s door, hoping I would not think to search for them in a sealed world. I had planned to slip through the door behind them before it closed, but I was too late. Fortunately for me, once the seal was broken any Master Key could open the door to Earth again. So, I found a Master Key and used all of my . . . persuasive skills to convince her to open it. By the time she did, why, the poor woman was of little use to me anymore, so after we passed through to Earth I left her in the water by the crystal door. It was a place on Earth you call the Yucatan. Very wild and mysterious.”

Gwen felt outrage building in her. “You left a Master Key to drown out in the middle of nowhere?”

Azric gave an elegant shrug as if he hadn’t bothered to consider the question. “I suppose so. Or perhaps she managed to summon help in some way or swim to shore, or reopen the door, go through it, and flag down a ship. We’ll never know, will we? Not worth losing sleep over.” Dismissing the thought as if it were irrelevant, he continued. “By the time I got through that door, your mothers were long gone, but I knew they were stuck on Earth. Breaking open a seal in such a way saps all of a seal-breaker’s energy for several years. Therefore, I knew your mothers would be vulnerable to my persuasive abilities, if only I could find them. I had quite a time locating your mothers again. It took years of research and — well, you know the rest of the story.”

“How did you get back here to Elantya?” Gwen interrupted. “Did you find another Key?”

“Well, naturally I had to find another Key. I, alas, am not a Key of any sort. But as you’ve surely guessed by now, any major city in any world is teeming with them. There could be dozens, even if they don’t know it. And the one I found was far more easily persuaded than the Master Key who let me in.”

“Do you know if my mother is alive?” Vic blurted. “Do you know where she is?”

Azric looked surprised, then pleased. “I do indeed have that information. If you want to learn those things from me, however, you will have to earn my trust. Which brings us again to the topic of our lesson. I need you to open a door or two for me, just simple ones at first.”

“I think you’re getting ahead of yourself, Azric,” Vic said. “We don’t know how to open any crystal doors.”

“That is what I intend to teach you today. The first thing.” He motioned to the merlon warriors to follow him and swam straight upward through the shadowy tangles of doolya toward the light high above. Vic’s and Gwen’s guards followed, dragging the cousins along by the ropes tied to their aching arms.

When they broke the surface, Gwen tried to breathe air, but the water in her lungs would not allow it, so she and Vic were forced to bob with their heads barely above the water and continue to breathe through the gills in their necks. The guards removed Gwen and Vic’s seaweed chains, so that they could move freely.

Using his magic, Azric rose to hover just above the gentle waves, as if he were standing on the water. He threw his head back and swept a hand in an intricate gesture through the air, leaving behind a glowing vapor trail that formed curious symbols. Looking directly into the airborne rune, the dark sage spoke a series of harsh, guttural syllables that made Gwen want to cringe in fear and disgust. She and Vic found themselves miraculously rising from the waves to hover above the water, as Azric himself had.

Vic went into a fit of coughing. Gwen desperately wanted a deep breath of water through her gill slits, but she was in the air now. Spewing water from her lungs, she coughed several times and willed herself to draw a deep breath of insubstantial-feeling air.

Vic finally cleared his lungs of water and croaked, “So, uh, what brings us out here on the open water?” Gwen could tell he was trying to sound reasonable and cooperative, but his voice shook slightly. “Are we planning to blow something up?”

Azric shook his head in amazement. “Can you not feel it? Where we are?”

Gwen closed her eyes for a moment and concentrated, surprised that she could indeed sense something, a faint tingle that started between her shoulder blades and ran down both arms to the wrists.

Vic squirmed in the air. “Sheesh, the hair on the back of my neck and my arms is starting to stand up. You aren’t going to strike us with lightning or anything, are you?”

Azric gave a knowing smile. “That tingle means that you are close to the crystal door that leads to your homeworld, and today you will open that door. Merely as practice, mind you. I have no need to go back to Earth.” He paused to let the implications sink in. “There’s no question you’d be reluctant to assist me. I know your reservations. But this crystal door leads back to your home — wouldn’t it be valuable to know how to open it?”

Though they had already decided to pretend to cooperate, Gwen could not keep the excitement from her face. She couldn’t deny the value in having that kind of knowledge, even if it did come from Azric.

“I see you agree. Now then, look at the underside of your wrists, at the symbol closest to your hand.” Hanging in the air, she and Vic did as they were told. “Now look away from the symbol and repeat after me.” Azric intoned a series of strange syllables in an unfamiliar language. His words sounded for all the world to Gwen like “take butter off Queequeg’s unctuous duckling” — that was as close as her mind could come to grasping the sounds, many of which didn’t even exist in the English or Elantyan languages.

Gwen hesitated and glanced at Vic. They had agreed to cooperate — up to a point — in order to gain Azric’s trust, but uncertainty flooded her mind. In the space of a few heartbeats, she weighed the pros and cons. First, what if this was a trick, a destructive spell rather than just opening a door to Earth? Second, since his ultimate intentions were evil, did they dare do what he asked, no matter what? Third, Lyssandra, Tiaret, and Sharif were being held hostage; would Azric follow through on his threat to kill them if Vic and Gwen resisted? Fourth, pretending to cooperate might give them their only chance to get away, and Elantya could be destroyed if the friends didn’t manage to warn them. Fifth, she and Vic needed to learn how to open crystal doors, even if they never intended to break a seal.

Instinct told her that, at least in this instance, Azric was telling the truth: This was the door to Earth, and he wanted them to open it simply for the practice. So, they both did their best to repeat the syllables Azric had spoken.

The dark sage was obviously not impressed. He took a deep breath and started again at the beginning, this time speaking only one syllable at a time. He made them repeat the first sounds again and again until he was completely satisfied with their pronunciation and intonation. He did the same thing with the next syllables, and when they had mastered those, strung the sounds together. Then a third batch of syllables, and so on.

How strange, Gwen thought, that in those few syllables it seemed like there was more to remember than there had been when she had memorized Lady Macbeth’s soliloquy for Mr. Doherty’s English class last year.

Gwen and Vic concentrated fiercely and did as Azric told them. To their surprise, the dark sage seemed to have a great deal of patience. Maybe it came from having five thousand years of perspective, Gwen thought.

When one of them bumbled in learning a syllable, or when Vic intentionally pronounced something incorrectly, Azric simply flicked his finger, which dropped the cousins into the water. There, they would choke and sputter, trying to breathe either water or air. Another finger flick from Azric hauled them back out of the water, where they would drip and cough and retch — and start all over. It was a slow and painful process, but eventually the twin cousins learned the entire phrase, perfectly.

“Now you, Vic — look only at that first symbol on your wrist and recite what I have taught you.”

Vic obviously knew better than to argue, and he recited the spell with admirable enunciation and inflection. The effect was instantaneous, eliciting a gasp from both Gwen and Vic as a huge bright backdrop appeared behind Azric in the shape of a half-arch. Glittering, vaguely geometric shapes swirled in transparent designs within the semicircle. It looked as if someone were throwing handfuls of confetti made of glass shards.

Vic shook his head in amazement. “I think somebody spilled glitter in the Stargate.”