Jade Moon (Celestial War Book 1) (11 page)

“Martin is still unconscious,” Mom answered. I recognized the anger in her tone.

“No matter.” Footsteps shuffled forward and two male voices grunted. I imagined them lifting Mr. Silver.

“I’ll come with you, but I can’t give you what you want.” Mom sounded so defiant it made me feel strong, determined.

“We’ll see.”

I fought the urge to leap out and shout, “You need the third piece of the relic! I know where it is.” I had no idea if they would believe me and mom seemed certain they would kill me. Instead, I did nothing. Just listened to them walk away.

Raf and I stood silent until we were sure they were gone.

“That was Mrs. Wattana!” he hissed. “Didn’t your mom say Boon Wattana was a Solaris?”

I pictured the friendly Italian woman and her pale husband at the Thai place. “You’re right!”

“Mr. Wattana is married to a Lunate?”

“No idea. All I know is that we need to save my mom.” I pictured Mrs. Wattana greeting us at the restaurant, hugging Raf. Who were these people.

“Harper this is way out of our league. We’re up against powerful adults. They aren’t afraid to kidnap people, maybe kill people! What are we going to do against them?”

“I don’t know. Let’s follow my mom before they get too far ahead. Maybe we can sneak her away while they’re not looking or something.”

It sounded ridiculous but Raf squeezed my hand and nodded agreement. We took off after the fading light, able to hang back and simply shuffle after the glow as it wound back through the narrow tunnels. We eventually made it back to the chamber with the River of Stars.

Light glowed from one of the other small passages from the central chamber. The tunnel ran for about thirty feet then opened up into a small, circular chamber. Raf and I hung back, waiting to see what would happen next.

At the center of the room was an underground temple! Stepped like the Maya pyramids back in Belize, it was covered with symbols; Native North American moons, the Aztec moon goddess, Olmec, and Maya glyphs all carved along the stairs leading up to a raised platform at the top. The entire structure was a celebration of ancient moon worship across the Americas combined in a single building. Along the flat surfaces there was faded blood-red paint. The corners of the temple crumbled. I wondered how old it was.

A shallow two-foot wide moat ran in a circle around its base. The moat was empty but looked damp, as though it had run with water recently. Flashlights gave way to fire as they lit censers at the four corners of the platform.

On the platform was a thick stone table. They roughly dropped Mr. Silver on top of the table and pushed mom to the floor.

Mr. Silver began to stir and Mrs. Wattana put a firm hand on his shoulder.

He looked up at her, bleary eyed. “Have you lost your mind? I’m a Gnomon! You’ve just brought the wrath of my order down upon your heads. And now the Solaris will move openly against you. They have far more power than you!”

“So you think.” I could hear the smile behind her mask.

“You think you can make the Jade Moon work? It is a legend, a myth! Even I know there’s no way it is as powerful as the stories claim!” Martin struggled against her, but she seemed able to keep him down simply by touching him.

“Nothing personal Martin,” she said. “ We know Marian Dae cares about you, and you were getting too close to our secret. This seemed the best way to encourage Marian to help us.”

Mr. Silver had been on their trail. Of course, he was the one who destroyed the library looking for their entrance!

Turning to my mom, Mrs. Wattana continued, “Marian, dear, we don’t want to hurt Martin. But we will if you don’t help us.” As she spoke, the two other robed figures moved mom next to the basin. She stood passive, the only sign of emotion her nose flaring with anger.

From her robes, Mrs. Wattana extracted a long obsidian knife. “We will do this slowly, make sure you get a full taste of Martin’s screams before we kill him.”

“No! I don’t know where it is!” Mom’s calm facade broke. “I can’t tell you where the disk is because I have no idea where Kane took it!”

“We shall see.” Mrs. Wattana moved toward Mr. Silver with her knife aloft.

“Raf, we have to stop this,” I whispered. “They’re going to kill Mr. Silver!”

“What can we do?”

“I don’t know, but we can’t watch them kill him.”

“Alright,” he looked around frantically. “I’ll create a distraction, you go free Mr. Silver and your mom.” Raf pointed. “I’ll get their attention and lure them down the far hall. Hopefully I can run fast enough and find another way out…”

He looked at me for a brief second, “If this goes bad, you’ve been a true friend, Harper.” He gave me a soft kiss on the cheek then took off before I could respond.

Raf moved low and fast along the wall, barely visible in the low light.

They didn’t see him until he was more than half way to the other tunnel.

“Hey!” one of the men shouted and they lunged at Raf. Giving up all pretense at stealth, he shifted into a full sprint, phone up to light his way.

I moved quickly toward the platform. Mrs. Wattana moved to the far side of the platform to watch the two men pursue Raf. I slid up next to Mr. Silver and shook his shoulder. His eyes flew wide and he struggled up. My mom’s mouth fell open and she let out an involuntary gasp at my appearance.

Mr. Silver managed to get up and lean against me.

Mom moved to his other side just as Mrs. Wattana turned back to us.

“I don’t think so,” she growled.

Mom dropped Mr. Silver’s arm and flew at her. Their bodies connected with a sickening wet sound. I was about to drop Mr. Silver and help my mom when five robed men sprinted from the tunnel Raf had just fled into.

“Run!” Mom screamed, rolling over on top of Mrs. Wattana, fists flying.

Mr Silver tugged my arm. “We need to escape so we can come back for your mom. They won’t hurt her!”

I knew he was right. With a cry of anguish at leaving her, I pulled Mr. Silver away. He was injured but managed to keep up as we ran into the darkness.

We stumbled into the main cavern as the robed men caught up. They spread out, cutting Mr. Silver and I off from the tunnels. Slowly tightening their circle, they forced us back toward the River of Stars.

“We have to jump.” Mr. Silver’s eyes darted to the river. It churned like boiling water, the force of it moving underground rumbling the floor beneath us.

“We’ll drown!” I shouted.

“No choice. They’ll kill us. It might come out somewhere safe.” Without warning, he flung his body into the roiling river.

The robed men closed in. Their fingers outstretched. A woman I hadn’t seen before strode into the cavern. She radiated power. Tall and commanding, long red robes swirled around her like a storm of blood. The woman shouted, “Kill her,” voice clapping like two boards being struck together.

I spun and threw myself into the roaring tempest.

Escape

The frigid water slapped my body sideways, undertow yanking me right into hell. It took a sharp intake of breath and my head submerged. Surging downward all I could do was flail my arms and legs, trying to keep them in front of me.  I was sucked along the underground river.

The waterway narrowed and a rock protrusion slammed into my ribs.  I exhaled precious breath, spinning out of control.  Careening into the opposite wall, my shoulder hit. Then my head.  I exhaled again.  Lungs empty, I threw my arms outward, trying to prevent another impact.

Black water tumbled my feet up and over as the water increased speed. My lungs burned.  On and on pushed through the never ending tunnel, careening off the sides that had become smooth.  Then a sudden sense of drowning hit, making me frantic. I clawed at my neck, a terrible feeling of claustrophobia closing in. The urge to inhale became overwhelming, head exploding in a starburst of agony. My arms and legs went numb.  Any sense of reality was annihilated. Was I inhaling or exhaling? Did my body still exist?

I was dying. Perhaps I wouldn’t ever figure out who I am.

And then, I was thrust sideways into nothingness.  Gulping in air, I fell, smacked into a watery surface, and was back under water again.  Kicking wildly, my feet caught on something solid and I thrust upward, face bursting from the water.

Foundering in the shallow pool, I drug myself to the water’s edge and collapsed onto dry soil, moaning as water flowed out of my mouth warm and acidic.  

Vomit erupted between hiccuping breaths.  A sob escaped and warm tears mingled with the cold water on my face.

Sprawled on the rocky shore, jerking shudders shook my body, breath steadying over time. My focus slowly returned as the adrenaline drained.

Tentatively, I raised my head and wiggled fingers and toes.  Gingerly sitting up, blackness closed from all sides but another deep breath in and my vision cleared. One by one, my senses seemed to come back on line.

First touch, my entire body burned with cold. Then smell, mold and bat guano. The sound of a roaring water suddenly filled my ears. Last, my vision fully cleared. Ambient light seeped in from far above. Very, very far above.

I lay in a circular chamber with vertical rock straight up.  The pool I had fallen into took up half of the round room, a torrent of water shooting from a small hole along the wall.  Splashing into the pool, it created a halo of mist in the faint light.  The pool was waist deep and flowed gently toward a triangular crevice between two huge boulders.

Otherwise, everything was black.

The smell of mold and decay was overwhelming.  No sound beyond the roar of the waterfall.  I reached up and felt sticky blood oozing from the goose egg on the back of my head.

I scanned the chamber until my eyes fell on a body. Mr. Silver! I propped myself up on a knee and fell forward toward him. None of my limbs seemed to be responding so I flopped like a baby seal. Laying on my side, I lifted my upper body onto an elbow and reached with my other hand for Mr. Silver. His body was warm. Chest rising and falling.

With a groan, I sat up and rolled him over. “Mr. Silver?” I tried to say, but a strange gurgling sound came out instead.

His eyes fluttered, “We alive?”

“Think so.”

He let out a strange little laugh. Shock maybe.

Using my arm, he pulled himself up so we were sitting next to each other, hunched forward, waterlogged and shivering.

“I’m not going to make it, you should keep going so you don’t freeze to death,” he said, voice ragged.

“Aren’t you just a ray of sunshine.” I burbled.

“Heh,” he coughed up a little water with his laugh. “You truly are you father’s daughter.”

I didn’t even bother to respond. My emotional reserves were empty.

“That woman that came in, she was….powerful.”

“The Lunate Patriarch.”

“A woman?”

“Patriarch is nothing but a title these days. Patriarch Aracan is one of the most powerful Patriarchs the Lunates have ever had.” He got onto hands and knees and vomited up another stream of thick liquid.

As soon as he spoke her name, I knew. “Raf’s mom.” A statement, not a question.

“That’s right.”

“Why didn’t you say something?”

“I’m bound by laws, Harper.” Mr. Silver’s body shuddered. “There are certain things I am forbidden from revealing. But they have overstepped every boundary that once stood. So, I am released from my oath. They have declared open war.”

“Raf’s mom is the one trying to kill me. The one who kidnapped my mother.”

“Yes.”

“Does Raf know?”

“I’ve no idea Harper. Quite often, children don’t know for a variety of reasons. Perhaps their parents hope they will lead a normal life, not caught up in the struggles. Or perhaps they do not approve of their child, feel they are unworthy of the mantle conferred by their bloodline.”

My teeth began to chatter as the cold seeped further into my bones. “Can you get up? I’m not leaving you here.”

He rocked back and sat next to me again. “Maybe if I rest for a moment.”

We sat huddled together. A thousand questions swirled through my brain. “Can you talk while you rest?”

“I can try. What is it, Harper?”

“Well, I mean…can you explain to me what’s happening? Everyone is chasing some kind of magical relic?”

He took a deep, uneven breath in. “To explain that I first need to explain the nature of magic.”

“That seems like a good place to start….”

He laughed again, a wet coughing sound. “There are two primal forces that make up the universe. These two forms of energy flow through the world and make up human consciousness. Every culture understands this on some fundamental level. Call it what you want, aether, atoms, quanta, it’s all the same thing. We call them Anima.”

I was clearly confused.  

“Imagine a storm sweeping across a plaza on a fall day.  As the wind swirls, it sweeps up a vortex of dry leaves, a whirlwind that rises off the stone ground and travels across the earth.  The leaves spin together like a temporary collection that moves as a united entity for a time.  But, eventually the wind slows and the leaves fall back to the ground, part of the random detritus blowing along.

“This is how it is with individuals - energy of universe, Anima swirls together in a living form.  Most people are simple collections of light and dark Anima gathered randomly from the universe. When individuals die, these bits of consciousness dissipate back into the collective energy of the world until they are caught up again by another.”

“Like reincarnation?” I asked.

“Yes, but for most people there is no coherent soul that lives on. Most people are a random mix of light and dark. These parts of them simply return to the universe’s flow of energy.

“But, every once in a while, a collection of consciousness is dominated by light or dark Anima. This collection of Anima can form an unusually strong bond and, once united, that collection of Anima remains together.  It forms a new whole that cannot be broken back down into its parts. When individuals who possess this sort of Anima die, their life force will not dissipate.  Instead their knowledge, beliefs, all aspects of their consciousness seeks a new place to reside.”

“So, there’s a roving ball of Anima wandering around looking for a new home?”

“Exactly. Most often, a collective of Anima seeks out a new body, a new human life to be born with the collective of knowledge and beliefs.  When these children are born you can see it in their eyes, the old soul inhabiting an infant.

“They don’t fully remember the past, but they have powerful insight and a stronger connection to the energy of the universe itself.  They see things that others do not.  Can do things that others cannot.  Artists capable of creating sublime works, dancers able to contort their bodies in supernatural ways, diplomats able to bring peace to the most ancient of enemies, scientists imbued with knowledge they have no right to understand.  In some cases, they can perform genuine magic.

“So, there are people with special abilities, born that way because they have some ancient collection of human consciousness living within them?”

“That’s correct. And those individuals are dominated by light or dark Anima. So, your father houses the consciousness of an ancient light Anima. This is why he can access the power of light. It is what makes him a Solaris.”

“So it is…inherited? Do I have a lot of sun juice? Would I know if I did?”

“You wouldn’t necessarily know. You might have a slightly higher concentration of light Anima from your father, but true power transfers generally only happen between a parent of the same gender as the child. Though just as often, the ancient Anima finds an entirely new bloodline to join.”

“Ah, so that’s why Raf’s mom is so mad that he’s a boy. She wanted a daughter to transfer her power to.” I paused, “So, if my parents had a son, he could have been super sun guy?”

“Possibly, though there are no guarantees. Plus, gender is complicated. We pretend it is a binary, but there are many reasons why it might not be straightforward. Hermaphroditic or transgendered children for example.”

“Okay…” I thought about that. “So, my dad was a collection of light Anima and so he could use sun power. Mrs. Wattana is a Lunate because she is a collation of dark Anima?”

“Exactly.”

“But what do her powers do? Why didn’t she shoot a dark bolt of energy at me or whatever.”

“The power of the ancient Anima have faded over the centuries. Long ago they were powerful, like gods. To access their powers now, they require an object that allows the user to focus the Anima flowing around them. Without the proper relic, it is incredibly difficult to tap into that numinous flow.”

“But once upon a time they could shoot fireballs?”

“Among many other things, yes.” He laughed a bit.

“Okay, so where are all these relics of power?” I asked.

“They were almost all destroyed hundreds of years ago during the last open war between the Solaris and Lunates.”

I must have looked totally lost because Mr. Silver patted my knee. “None of that matters at the moment. We can discuss all of this once we escape. First let’s survive. I’m sufficiently rested.” He struggled to his feet, barely managing to stay upright.

“Alright,” I answered. I needed time to think anyway.

Evidence of human habitation littered the small room. Native American pottery and long- cold fire pits scattered across the floor. We made an unsteady circuit along the walls but found no clear exit. Finally stopping, we both eyed the triangular opening between two boulders through which the water flowed, fervently hoping that was not the only way out.  A second circuit yielded no hidden doorway.  

I looked up the long shaft. No way for us to climb all the way out. The tantalizing light brought a wave of helplessness. Stop it, Harper.

“Well, the good news is that we’re alive.” I said. “The bad news is that I think that’s the only way out of here.” I pointed to the dark crevasse.

“Alright, no more chitchat. We’ve got to be almost out of here.” Using the wall to hold himself up, Mr. Silver waded into the water and ducked through the low crevasse.  I moaned, but followed. I thought I couldn’t have been colder but the water hit my armpits and I learned how wrong I was. The water pulled the last bit of warmth from my body.

The uneven floor made for slow going as a tunnel meandered gently among large boulders.  The water deepened and we were forced to swim. Splashing along, I made indignant huffing sounds to vent some frustration and prevent my teeth from chattering.

An almost imperceptible current pulled us forward into the darkness.  At least we weren’t back in a raging river. The tunnel lowered overhead until it was less than a foot above the surface.  

Something moved along the ceiling ahead and we came to a full stop treading water at the sight of a nest of cave spiders clinging to the low rocks.  Brown bodies as large as a human head moved atop spindly, shinning legs. In the faint, ambient light, they skittered as quickly as something so large could move.  To keep my head out of the water I would have to brush up against them.  

The idea of going fully back underwater was almost equally as terrifying, but it was foolish to delay and so we took a deep breath and once again submerged.  I swam as far as my already burning lungs allowed before slowly resurfacing.  As my eyes cleared the water, something brushed against my head. A frantic wriggling spider tangled itself in my hair. I let out a wail and instinctively grabbed for it, palm filling with writhing spider body that I threw away into the water.

Retching I dropped back under the water and swam as far as I could.  The floor rose to meet my feet and found the edge of a pool where I collapsed onto the smooth ground.

Mr. Silver knelt next to me muttering, “Ok lords of death, I hope I am sufficiently humiliated.”

My cheek pressed against dry, lose dirt — not mucky clay. I luxuriated in its dryness against my battered body. From the small chamber a rough tunnel angled sharply upward. A tiny point of light shone from the shaft. Beautiful, glorious light.

The ground of the tunnel was loose and every step began a small avalanche of rubble. The angle was so steep that we had to crawl. Small, jagged rocks tore at our pants, scraped layers of skin off our knees and palms as we scrambled upward. Mr. Silver slowed until he was barely crawling forward.

“Come on Mr. Silver. Mambo will be waiting to see you.” I imagine the powerful woman standing in the doorway, Kaska goofy by her side.

That seemed the right thing to say because he pulled with renewed strength, despite his wheezing breath.

It was well over an hour of climbing, my whole body quivering with exhaustion, before we fell through a small cave opening out into a forest of Virginia trees. The glorious milky way peaking between the pines made me cry out with joy.

To the west, deep blue contrasted to the silver stars. To the east, the faintest hint of dawn glowed on the horizon.

Mr. Silver fell to the ground next to me and we lay on the forest floor staring at the dawn for a very long time.