sorcery and science 04.5 - masquerade (7 page)

“How will we get away from them?” Her voice shook.

“First, we’re going to get to higher ground.” He held up the throwing knife he’d caught back at Ribbon Falls. “Then, I’m going to put this knife right through that Phantom’s head.”

“Jason…you can’t do that.”

“Watch me.”

“But—”

“I can hit just about anything.”

“I know. But those are just things. We’re talking about a person. You’re planning to kill a person.”

“They said this is a portal loop, which means there’s another portal here somewhere. If we can get rid of the Phantom, they won’t be able to follow us. And we have to get away, Terra. You know what they’ll do to us if they catch us. I think they’re Siennan.”

“How do you know?” she asked.

He tapped his nose. “They smell Siennan. And that means Avans. That’s even worse than the Selpes. Our families won’t even have a treaty to wave around to try to get us out.”

She set her hands on his cheeks. “Yes, Jason. But you’re planning to kill a person. It will change you.”

“The little princess is right, you know,” the big Phantom boomed out. His words echoed against the walls, gaining in intensity. The sound was deafening.

Jason pushed himself in front of Terra as the Phantom and his seven comrades closed in.

“Don’t be stupid, boy. They may call you the future Elite Phantom, but I’m over four hundred years old and a whole lot stronger than a pup like you,” he said, pulling out his sword. It was taller than Jason and Terra—combined. And it gleamed with something that looked a lot like fresh blood.

A woman with long white hair and cerulean eyes stepped forward, arms extended. “Come with us, children. We’ll protect you,” she said, smiling.

Jason felt a warmth spread through his body, encompassing him like a soft down blanket. He’d taken two steps toward her before he realized what he was doing and backtracked to Terra. He slammed down his mental wall, and a frigid cold pushed out the deceptive warmth of the woman’s enchantment.

“An Enchanter,” Jason told Terra.

The Enchanter inclined her head toward him in a regal nod. Jason responded by raising his knife.

“We have no time for this,” the Phantom declared, motioning the rest of his team forward.

They came at Jason like a swarm of wasps, throwing kicks and punches at him as though they’d been born for nothing else. He evaded some of the hits—and withstood the others with unrelenting stubbornness. He’d always had a good share of that.

But whereas the blows did nothing to chip away at his stubbornness, they did their job slowing him down. One of the assailants got past him. Then another.

“Terra,” he warned.

“Ok,” she replied, pushing herself back-to-back with him as the two Elitions swung around.

Within a minute, he heard bone snap, then both men went down. Jason stole a quick glance and saw them lying on the ground, each one cradling a broken leg. Terra had done that. She certainly was stronger than he’d thought. Actually, if she could pull off a move like breaking the bone of a grown Elition, she was stronger than any child but a future Phantom.

And to break the same bone in
two
Elitions in under a minute made her faster than most of those future Phantoms. Granted the fibula wasn’t the toughest bone, but it was nonetheless an impressive feat for a seven-year-old girl who was already a Prophet in all but name. Prophets weren’t generally built to deal damage.

Jason’s distracted mind cost him. He took a punch to the head and nearly blacked out. Dropping to his knees, black spots dancing before his eyes, Jason glared up at the Phantom. He’d put away his sword in favor of fighting with his fists. So the sword was just for show. Whoever these Elitions were—whoever had hired them—they were aiming to capture, not kill. But that didn’t mean they were going to play nicely. Jason rolled to avoid a second blow that would have knocked him out. Instead of meeting the Phantom’s fist, he met the stone wall and his back hit the ground like wet batter.

As their assailants roared with laughter, Terra reached down to pull him back up.

His legs shook and he could hardly breathe, but he stood his ground and stayed on his feet. He lifted a hand to the back of his head and it came back dripping blood. He hid it behind his back before Terra could see. He needed her to distract the Phantom, not be distracted fussing over his bloody head.

I’ll heal soon anyway
, he thought, even as black swirls slithered across his field of view. But Jason’s mind hardly lingered on this reminder of a fractured skull. What occupied his thoughts was the glimmer of the next portal fifty meters past the eight-person Elition fence.
Oh, good. Broken Legs One and Two have healed and are back in the fray.

Jason wondered whether they would spontaneously combust if he sent seething glares at them long enough. That would have been a useful skill in a fight.

“Your turn,” Jason whispered, setting a head-sized rock into Terra’s hand.

She looked down at the rock, as though she were studying its contours, then in a single fluid motion, pitched it at the Phantom. His teammates scattered, but he just reached his hand out calmly and plucked it from the air as though it were nothing more substantial than a rosebud. Then he turned a feral sneer on Terra.

“Now, little girl, why did you have to go and do that?” he asked her. “That was just mean.”

Terra responded by scooping up an even larger rock and hurling it at his head. Once again, he caught it easily.

“I warned you, little girl, and now I’m just going to have to punish you,” he snarled, lifting the rock over his head. “When I’m through—”

He stumbled and fell. His rock fell with him, finishing the job Jason’s knife had started. The assailants blinked in collective disbelief as Jason walked over to their big, bad Phantom, unburied his head out from under the rock, and rolled him over. The potent fire in his yellow eyes had gone out, leaving nothing but death. Jason yanked the knife out of his heart and stood to face the seven remaining assailants.

“What now?” Terra whispered as she came up behind him.

Jason took a firm hold of her hand, which seemed to be all the answer she needed. She matched him step for step as he sprinted toward the portal. They cut around the scattered Elitions, who threw every knife they had at them in an attempt to stop them from reaching it. Terra gasped in pain as Jason pulled them through the portal. The sea breeze gave way to foggy skies, and Jason blacked out.

~ 5 ~

516AX April 18, Mist Veil

A BRIGHT LIGHT shone against Jason’s closed eyes, burning him into consciousness. He jumped up, looking around for the Siennans, but he and Terra were the only ones there. She sat on the ground, cradling her leg. Drops of blood oozed slowly through her closed fingers, staining her hands with blotches of crimson color.

“Let me see,” Jason said as he crouched down beside her.

A wet slap creaked out as she peeled her hands off her thigh, revealing a gorge in the flesh. Why hadn’t that healed? He leaned in for a closer look and identified the culprit. The handle of the Leaf had torn off, leaving the scattered shards of a broken blade lodged deep inside her leg. Jason wasn’t sure how the knife could have broken like that—it was pure metal—but it looked bad.

“How long have I been out?” he asked.

“Just a few minutes.”

“I’m going to have to get those pieces out, you know.”

What little color remained in her face washed out. “I tried, but I couldn’t get a good grip on the pieces. My fingers kept slipping. And…and it hurt too much.”

“I’m not going to use my fingers.” He leaned his back against a tree and motioned her forward. “Come on. Quickly.”

Terra looked like she’d rather do just about anything else, but she crawled over and pressed her back against him. Jason wrapped his arms around her torso and his legs around hers, locking her in place. Then he closed his eyes and tried to focus his attention on the metal shards. As they began to move, tearing back through the flesh that had only partially healed, a scream of pure pain burst from her lips. She struggled to break free, but he held her firmly in place. She kicked and bit and cried—and then finally, as the shards slipped out of her body, she went limp. Jason set her against the tree trunk and kneeled before her.

“Terra,” he said, trying to shake her awake.

She remained as limp as a wet noodle.

“Wake up. You have to wake up,” he insisted, slapping her face.

“No,” she muttered, eyes still closed. “You can’t…tell me what to do…give me commands… I’m higher…”

“Yes, you are. You’re the next high queen, and I’m a nobody. Order me around all you want. Just wake up,” he pleaded.

A pained snort buzzed through her parched lips. She’d lost so much blood.

“Don’t want to be…high queen.” Her eyes opened. “And you’re not nobody. You’re my friend.”

Relief rushed through Jason, compelling him to hug her harder than he should have.

“Ouch,” she piped. “Still hurting here.”

“Sorry.” He helped her to sit up straighter. “I was just worried that you…”

“Like I was going to let a few pieces of metal kill me. I may not have your Phantom super powers, but I’m stronger than you think, Jason.”

Terra brushed her hand over the wound. It had sealed completely, leaving behind only a strip of torn fabric in her pants and a slathering of blood on her skin.

“Yes,” he said, looking at her healed leg. “I’m starting to see that you are.”

Terra pulled herself up and looked around. “We’re in the north. It looks like Mist Veil.”

Jason had noted the blue evergreens. And the shiny black temple down the hill. Looking big and imposing, it sat between two lakes.

“But close to the Strand of Aurelia,” he said, pointing toward the temple. “Lake Yvonne and Lake Almira. And there in the middle is the Temple of Aurelia.”

“Where do we go from here?” Terra asked, stumbling in her step.

She caught herself before she fell. Even though her body had healed the wound, she wasn’t looking good. Between the loss of blood, the strain of healing herself, and fighting off the Siennans, she was close to her limit. It was a good thing Jason had taken care of that Phantom. She didn’t have the energy left to run any more. She didn’t even have the energy to walk. At least not very far. He had to get her home.

If the Siennans were right and this was a portal loop, then it had to eventually lead back to where they began. Back to Ribbon Falls. From there, Rosewater wasn’t far. He could bring her to the temple, and they would be able to give her something to help her regain her strength.

“We need to find the next portal,” he said, heading down the hill. He kept his pace slow.

“And it’s here?”

“I think so. We’ve been through a couple of them already, so I’m starting to recognize the energy of the loop portals. I feel it somewhere close to Lake Yvonne.”

Jason allowed the resonance of the portal to draw him forward. Then, as they began to walk along the shore of Lake Yvonne, he saw it. A pale glimmer—a fold in air heavy with fog—this portal was less visible to the eye than the others, but it sang with a familiar magic. Jason extended one hand back to Terra and one forward to grasp the edge of the portal. The cool winds of the north bled away, replaced by muggy air and the scorching rays of the setting sun.

They stood in the center of a dirty field. A few steps away was a stone temple, old and neglected, but that was it. No people, no houses, no other buildings of any kind. The temple stood alone on a ground of cracked mud overgrown with wild grasses and flowers. Butterflies danced gracefully on the wind, frolicking about with undisturbed tranquility.

“No one has been here in a very long time,” Terra commented. Her eyes panned over the temple’s walls, which were overgrown with green and brown vines that blossomed red and purple. “Perhaps centuries.”

“This is one of Elitia’s hidden pockets, a remnant of the days before the Shroud was torn,” Jason said, walking toward the temple. He looked up at the block over the front door, a block that had been carved with the symbol of two overlapping circles. “Eclipse. We’re in Eclipse.”

“I thought Eclipse was just a legend,” she said. “And how did we even end up here? In order to even enter into a protected pocket, someone already in on its secret has to lead you in first. That’s how the magic works. But you’ve never been here before, Jason.”

“No, I haven’t. I’m not sure how I was able to bring us here.”

“Perhaps because you’re going to be the next Elite Phantom?” she suggested.

“Perhaps.” It was as good an explanation as any he could come up with. “If I’m even really the next Elite Phantom.”

“The priests think you’ll be.”

“They think a lot of crazy things.”

“That’s true,” Terra agreed. She walked into the field of butterflies, closing her eyes with a content smile. “It’s peaceful here. So quiet.”

Jason stepped up beside her. “Maybe we should stay. No one has lived in Eclipse in centuries. There’s probably not even anyone still alive who can get inside. No one would ever find us here.”

“Even our bickering families?”

“Especially them,” he grumbled.

She took his hand. “You know we can’t stay.”

“How about just for the summer?”

“Come on, Jason.” She smiled at him. “Let’s find the next portal.”

He could feel it nearby, trying to tug him down. He blocked it out, and the sensation died.

“Jason?”

“Let’s first see if we can find anything in the temple to help you.”

The front doors of the temple were thick and wooden, and they didn’t like being opened after several centuries of disuse. They screeched out in protest as Jason tugged them ajar, and they screamed like a tortured prisoner when he pushed them the rest of the way open.

He led the way inside, coughing when the stale air hit his lungs. They walked from room to room, kicking up swirls of dust that followed them around like a little rain cloud. Jason found a room of neatly arranged vials on rows of shelves, but other than the dust collecting inside them, they were all empty. He rummaged through some cabinets with no better luck. Anything of use had either been taken when the Elitions of Eclipse abandoned their town, or long since turned to dust.