The Ascension (2 page)

Something caught in Gem then, even though she told herself that she shouldn’t care. “What sort of danger?”

Dr. Brown looked uncomfortable as he searched for the right words for it.

“Myriad is an odd sort of place. It seems to be as much dream as reality, and as much fairy tale as either. Creatures of myth are
ubiquitous
there. You can understand how awkward that sort of thing is for me to admit, as a man of science, but it seems to be true.”

Gem looked at the picture again, then back at Dr. Brown.

“That doesn’t sound
too
bad.” The scientist raised his eyebrows.

“You think so? But whatever it’s like, we have to get Henry back.
Yo u
have to get Henry back.

Preferably before his presence there starts to distort the fabric of reality so badly that Myriad
impinges
upon our world.”

Gem nodded, because of course she was going to get Henry Word back, but then paused.

“Before it what?”

“Oh, didn’t I mention that? It’s a very simple matter real y, and the physics are absolutely fascinating, of course…”

Once more, Gem held up a hand to stop Dr.

Brown before he could launch into his explanation.

“If we are going to get him back, we wil need help.”

Dr. Brown nodded.

“I thought you might say that. That is why I have sent messages to Stieg Sparks, Riordan Roberts, Katherine Kipling and Jackson Zusak. They have accepted, and I have arranged transport.” It took Gem a moment to recognize the ful names.

“You mean Sparks, Rio, Kat and Jack are coming back here?”

“That is what I said, I believe.”

Gem nodded, considering. It would be so good to see them again, and they would certainly need the help.

“How soon wil they be here?” Gem asked.

“In the next day or so.”

“Good.”

They met in the recreation room, which Dr.

Brown had commandeered for the afternoon despite some protests from the rest of the staff. Gem found herself playing pool against him while they waited, only to be subjected to a series of
abject
defeats as the scientist cleared the table easily each time he came to it.

“Henry Word was right,” Gem said after a while. “You
are
a pool shark.”

“I am a little
adept
at it, I admit.”

“A little?” Gem complained. “That would be like a violin
virtuoso
saying that they could play “a bit”. I’m not exactly a
novice
,
but I haven’t won a game.”

They kept playing anyway, and it wasn’t long before the others started to trickle in. Sparks was the first to show up, hugging Gem tightly. He hardly looked any different from the start of the summer, with his clean-cut, quarterback blond good looks.

Rio was next. He too seemed unchanged, stil darkly handsome, and stil treating Gem to a flirtatious smile the moment he saw her. Kat and Jack were bigger surprises though. Kat was dressed casual y, in a dark sweater and jeans, but there was no sign of her black make-up, and her hair was a more uniform dark brown, without the red and blue streaks she’d had before. As for Jack…

Gem hardly recognized him when he walked in. He was tal er now, so that she actual y had to look up at him. He’d also fil ed out with muscle beneath his t-shirt and jeans. His glasses were gone, while his shock of red hair had become a deep reddish-brown. The transformation over just a couple of months was incredible.

Everyone had noticed it, but Sparks actual y acknowledged it. “Wow! If I didn’t know better, I’d say this was some sort of magical
transmutation
. Who are you, and what have you done with Jack Zusak?” Jack laughed at that.

“It had to happen sometime.”

“I hate to put a stop to things,” Dr. Brown interrupted then, “but things are quite urgent. There are things you should know. Would you sit down please?”

They al took comfortable chairs. While they did so, Dr. Brown was busy arranging a rough zigzag of pool bal s on the table next to him. It looked like the set up for some sort of trick shot.

“First, you should know that Henry Word is missing.”

A murmur went through the group, but Dr.

Brown kept going.

“It appears that your efforts in the world of Anachronia have greater things in motion. At the moment, those things involve the world of Myriad. It is a dangerous place. Dreams and reality blur there, and mortals can easily lose themselves. Even a moment’ s
complacency
can be deadly. It is possible that is what has occurred with Henry, though it is equal y probable that he has been
abducted
.”

It was Kat who spoke first.

“This is what? Another new level?”

“No, Ms. Kipling. Myriad is real. As was Anachronia.”

“Oh, come on. You can’t expect us to believe that. Not after you showed us ourselves playing a game.”

It was almost nice to know that Kat hadn’t lost al of her
fractious
tendencies, Gem thought.

Almost.

“Kat,” Gem said, “I have spent the last two months ruling in Anachronia. It is real. Do you remember that I was the last to leave, when we went home?”

Kat nodded.

“I ran back at the last minute to talk to Henry Word. I found him in his study, holding a picture of himself and an Anachronian woman. When I asked him about it, he told me two things. First, that Anachronia
was
real, whatever was
implicit
in that demonstration before…”

“But it can’t be,” Kat insisted. Dr. Brown spun one of the bal s on the pool table.

“I’m afraid that it is true, Ms. Kipling. I

“I’m afraid that it is true, Ms. Kipling. I apologize that we had to…
dissemble
on the subject before, and if the
duplicity
on the part of Henry and myself has angered you, I apologize unreservedly. Please be in no doubt though that Anachronia is real.”

That brought a moment of silence from the others. It was Jack who spoke.

“If I’d known that at the start, I might not have gone. I’m not exactly cut out for fighting. We nearly got kil ed there a couple of times.”

Gem was about to comment that now he seemed to be very wel -built for fighting, but she didn’t have a chance, because Sparks spoke first.

“What was the second thing he told you, Gem?”

Gem winced at the fact that he had caught that. She knew that she couldn’t hold it back though.

Not if she wanted the others to trust her.

“He said… he said that the picture was of Princess Chelsea and himself, and that I was his daughter. Like I said, I have spent the summer ruling there, trying to make things work.” She got the words out in a rush. They fel into the waiting silence. It continued as the others thought about the implications of what they had just been told. Final y, Kat grinned.

“Talk about spending your summers abroad.”

“So,” Gem asked, “wil you help?”

“What sort of obstacles would there be in Myriad,” Rio asked, “and what could we use to protect ourselves?”

“
Incisive
questions, Mr. Roberts,” Dr. Brown said. “The truth is…there is only so much I can tel you. There seem to be few mortals on Myriad.

Instead, the world is inhabited by the creatures that we would think of as Fey, or Fairies, along with other fantastic creatures. Someone ful y human there might wel be thought of as little more than a snack.”

“Which is why you cal ed for me rather than going yourself,” Gem guessed. “After al , I’m half Anachronian.” Dr. Brown nodded. “Wil ruler words work there? I would like to think that there is something we can do to defend ourselves.”

“They might,” Dr. Brown replied. “I don’t know for certain. There are definitely links between our world, Myriad, and Anachronia. Henry was investigating those links when he vanished though, so we don’t know the ful extent of them.”

“Could those links have something to do with that disappearance?” Jack asked.

“Possibly. Again, I don’t know. What I do know, however, is this…” he fished a cue out from under the pool table. “As people visit worlds like Myriad, it seems to draw them closer together.” He brushed the zigzag of bal s on the table into a rough line.

“How would we get there?” she asked.

“What about the pods?” Jack suggested. Dr.

Brown shook his head.

“Strictly speaking, they are
superfluous
here. Getting to Myriad seems to be more about your state of mind than the technology. Henry even had the theory that you can only enter the place if you are somehow meant to be there. Knowing that it is there helps, of course. I suppose the pods might be useful in eliminating distractions.”

He left it at that. Gem found herself watching the others. They al seemed stunned, but then, they had a right to be after everything they had just been told.

“They should have some time to think about it,” she suggested. “After al , this has probably been a shock.” It certainly had been to her. To her relief, Dr. Brown agreed, saying that he would go and check assorted parts of the computer set up, and would be back in a little while.

The others seemed to let out a col ective breath as the scientist left. Sparks leaned back in his chair.

“Wel , that explains why you didn’t keep in touch over the summer.”

“I’ve been a bit busy,” Gem pointed out.

Sparks smiled.

“I’m not criticizing. Anyways, it also explains some of the weird stuff that has been happening.”

“Like what?” Gem asked.

Sparks looked around them, as though he wasn’t sure he should be saying anything. It wasn’t like him, Gem thought, to be indecisive.

“For the last few weeks,” he said at last,

“there has been some guy fol owing me around, dressed in this real y
garish
costume, like some sort of jester’s outfit. A couple of times, I tried to confront him, but it was like he… flew off or something. Al I found was this weird dust, like he’d been…

sprinkling it round as he went. I know it must sound insane.”

“Just a little,” Kat
interjected
. “Are you sure it wasn’t a dream? I’ve been having this weird one, with this
wizened
old woman, leaning on a stick, only her fingers are pure ice.”

“Ice isn’t that bad,” Jack put in. “If you live with it long enough, you get
inured.
Back home in Alaska, I hardly notice the cold now.” And of course there was his sudden growth spurt. Gem added it to a mental list before turning to Rio. This close to him, she could see that he had a day’s worth of dark stubble covering his
swarthy
good looks. It only added to the sense of danger he seemed to carry everywhere with him.

“What about you, Rio? Have you been having weird things happen to you?”

“What? No, nothing like that.”

There was something about the way he said it that made Gem feel almost certain that there was something, but she knew better than to pry. Trying to get an answer out of him would only make Rio more
taciturn
than he already was. Gem drummed her fingers on the edge of her chair.

“Look, everyone, I know this is al a lot to take in, but we’l have to decide if we’re going. I am.

Whatever I feel about Henry Word, I… I owe it to him to at least try, especial y if what Dr. Brown said is true.”

Sparks nodded.

“In that case, I’m going too. Maybe I’l even find an answer or two.”

Rio nodded as wel .

“If you’re in, Gem, I’m in.”

“Me too,” Jack said. Gem noticed the way he looked at her as he did so. Kat looked around al of the boys and snorted.

“You do realize that you’re al pathetic, diving into danger just because you fancy Gem?” she
chided
, ignoring the chorus of objections that fol owed. Gem noticed though that Kat’s eyes lingered on Rio before she gave her own answer.

“Al right, I’l do it. Just don’t go blaming me if we al get kil ed.”

Gem went and found Dr. Brown, who seemed delighted at the news.

delighted at the news.

“Your sleeping pods are exactly where they were, of course. Please, we should hurry before anything can happen to Henry.”

He led the way through the castle, and Gem could feel the sense of expectation coming from the others as they headed for their rooms. Sparks paused with her in the hal way outside them, waiting for the others to head inside. He kissed her then, deeply, and Gem found herself kissing him back.

They only broke apart when Dr. Brown coughed pointedly. Gem laughed as they stepped back from one another.

“We should be getting to Myriad.”

“Yes,” Sparks said. “I just wanted to make up for not seeing you.”

“Oh,

you

did,”

Gem

assured

him,

remembering how much she was attracted to Sparks. When she first met him before they went to Anachronia, she thought he was just a handsome jock like the ones she cheered on at school, but he’s proven to be one of the smartest boys around, with a good head on his shoulders. He came in second to winning the game, right behind Gem. Without his help, she wouldn’t have won. Without his help, she wouldn’t have survived. Facing al the dangers and excitement of Anachronia, Gem had to admit, she and Sparks had grown very close. “Promise me that you won’t do anything stupid like get kil ed?”