Crystal Doors #3: Sky Realm (No. 3) (15 page)

“Don’t make him angry, Taz. Are you trying to get us killed?”

“Bravado now, jail-break later,” Vic said. “Anyway, what makes you think he knows what it means?”

The terodax let out another whistling yowl and winged away, taking his companions with him. Up above in Irrakesh, Azric was probably making plans and giving King Raathun control of the city. No one knew if Sharif’s father was still alive, but the old Sultan had been very weak already and was, at the very least, nearly dead from the long-acting poison he had been fighting. Vic didn’t know how they were ever going to get out of this. But “hanging around” here until they turned into skeletons was not an option for the Ring of Might. If the prophecies were right — and at this point Vic fervently hoped they were — the fate of entire worlds rested in the hands of the five friends. They
had
to escape.

“Can you not summon the djinni to help us?” Tiaret called to Sharif.

The Prince shook his head. “Even if I knew some trick by which to call them, no one can command an Air Spirit unless he holds that djinni captive through evil magic.” His brows drew together, and his voice went hoarse. “I believe Piri wishes to help us, but she cannot, for Azric now holds her.”

Just then, a dun-colored giant moth fluttered down among the hanging cages. It looked just like the messenger moths that Jabir had kept, but Vic couldn’t remember any of them being quite as plain as this one. It almost blended in with the dirt and rock under the city — which perhaps was the point, Vic realized.

Without hesitation, it flew to the cage Sharif, Vic, and Lyssandra were in. The creature had a tiny scroll tied to its leg, and Sharif retrieved it. As soon as the Prince held the message in his hand, the dun moth flitted away.

Sharif unrolled the scrap of parchment. “It is from Jabir,” he said and read it aloud. “Do not despair, Prince. Your father lives. Azric watches me closely, but as our people say, ‘A disciple of hate commands no power to rival the might of love.’”

“That sounds promising, at least,” Gwen said. The landscape, however, had no cheer to offer them. Below they saw a field of volcanoes, some belching fumes, others like cauldrons filled with boiling lava, and even more of them dead cinder cones crawling with a huge population of terodax. “Look at all the destruction,” she said. “It seems like places where the terodax and the aeglors live are the only parts of the surface that were spared. And even that doesn’t look too appealing.”

“Didn’t Azric ruin most of this world?” Vic asked.

“Yes — with a curse. My world is just a start, however,” Sharif said, staring downward at the blasted terrain. “If Azric succeeds in breaking open the sealed crystal doors and unleashing his indestructible armies, all worlds that resist him may end up like this.”

“That is possible. But there is something important that I did not tell you about Azric’s deathless warriors,” Lyssandra said. “The images you saw in the window that Gwenya opened did not tell the entire story.”

“True,” Tiaret agreed. “The Great Epic would not be complete with pictures alone. Words are necessary to impart understanding.”

“Then it is fortunate for us that Azric could not
hear
what the soldiers in the window were saying. Their traditional Festival of Azric has been held for thousands of years. But they do not celebrate the dark sage. They despise the Azric and curse his name.”

“Are you sure?” Vic asked her. “Sheesh, they looked pretty happy to me.”

“They were,” Lyssandra assured him uncomfortably, not meeting his eyes. “I heard many comments that led me to this conclusion. One soldier said that he wished the feast were over already, so that the crowds could begin their revels, torturing and dismembering the false Azric all night.”

“Eww,” Gwen said. “I’m not sure I really wanted to know that.”

Tiaret seemed greatly interested, however. “The man who stood in for Azric — was he an immortal warrior, as well? If so, he could be dismembered, but he would not die.”

Lyssandra nodded. “But immortals can still feel pain. Another of the soldiers laughed and said that he longed for the opportunity to chop the real Azric into small pieces, and then — once Azric reassembled himself — rip him to shreds all over again.” The interpreter girl shuddered.

Vic said, “Cool.”

Astonished by her cousin’s apparent insensitivity to suffering, Gwen shot him one of her I-can’t-believe-you-just-said-that looks.

“Don’t you get it?” Vic said from the other cage. “This means that even if Azric did manage to get through the seal on that crystal door, his armies aren’t exactly going to be happy to see him.”

“Not in the way that Azric would wish them to be happy,” Sharif corrected. “But with their door unsealed, the deathless armies could still conquer many unsuspecting worlds.”

“Then we must see that they do not escape,” Tiaret said.

“How can we stop them from escaping when we cannot even free ourselves?” Sharif asked.

18

AT NIGHT THE IRON cages still creaked, the sulfurous air still stank, and the lava cracks in the ground below them still glowed like the dying embers of a campfire. Gwen felt they had been hanging there forever.

That day they had watched the terodax flying in regimented patterns after their broad-winged leader. She wondered if the flying creatures had a hive mentality and he was “king bee,” or if they were simply a well-coordinated flock following a single point bird. She had seen birds in formation before. Though she wasn’t convinced that the monsters had high intelligence, they made up for any lack of brainpower with brute force.

Azric had not come down from the city overhead to taunt them, but Gwen was sure the dark sage would eventually try to force his captives to do his bidding, using the Ring of Might to his advantage. This long silence was not hesitation on Azric’s part. Rather, she knew he was softening them up, tormenting them, hoping to weaken the five friends. Well, she vowed, he would be in for a surprise.

In the dead of night when the aeglors had clustered in the towers of the human-built city above and the terodax had gone back to their nests in the volcanic craters below, Irrakesh drifted in silence, cages dangling beneath it. In the other occupied cage Gwen could see her friends’ forms as shadows, lit only by the reddish glow from below.

“Maybe we should try a sing-along,” Vic suggested. “A little ‘Kum Ba Yah’ to keep our minds off our troubles?”

Gwen snorted. “First, singing would call attention to ourselves — the wrong sort of attention. Second, the fumes from the volcanoes are making my throat raw. And . . . ” — she fumbled for another point — “third, your singing voice is terrible.” She knew the criticism wasn’t fair, but she was beyond irritable. Breathing volcano vapors had made her feel woozy, and her rear end was numb from sitting on metal bars all day.

Tiaret sat up, apparently not as affected by the day in captivity as her cage-mate. “I could recite portions of the Great Epic. Let us hope that someday our present actions will be remembered.”

Out of the corner of her eye, Gwen saw a large angular shadow slide silently beneath them, blocking out the faint light. She leaned forward, grasping the bars of the cage, and peered through. She nudged Tiaret. “Did you see that?”

From the other cage, Sharif asked, “What was it? Is something coming after us?”

“It appeared too large to be a terodax,” Tiaret said, suddenly on guard.

Gwen tried to spot the thing again and saw the silhouette eclipsing a bright patch of lava below. It came back toward them, too rectangular, too geometrical to be an aeglor or a terodax. A figure was hunched on it!

Sharif got to his feet so quickly that his cage rocked, and Vic and Lyssandra clutched each other for balance. “That is a flying carpet — a large one.”

The shape came much closer and Gwen made out the old Sultan sitting on his crimson flying carpet, which was more than twice the size of Sharif’s.

“Father, how did you break free?” Sharif called in a carefully lowered voice. The Sultan flew up directly beneath the cages on the large rug. Gwen had seen the floor covering in his bedchamber and had thought it a normal carpet, but she should have realized it was the same one Jabir had used for their procession around the city. The intricate patterns and weavings of aja thread made the Sultan’s flying carpet more magnificent than the smaller purple one that Sharif used for his personal transportation.

“It is fortunate that I keep this carpet in my chambers. The aeglors did not think to search beneath a weak old man’s bed for a means of escape.” He indicated a curved blade that hung by his side. “And this was secreted among the heavy hangings outside my bedchamber. We must leave here. There is very little time.”

“Father, are you cured?” Sharif said, and Gwen realized that the old man did indeed seem vibrant and full of energy. His eyes sparkled, his movements were quick and sure.

“I can function well enough for now,” he said and rose to his feet, carefully keeping his balance. “Long enough to break you free. I must get you away from Azric . . . if it is the last thing I do.”

“We can travel much faster if we take two carpets,” Sharif said. He quickly used the rune woven into his own flying carpet to summon it.

“Why didn’t you call your carpet before?” Vic asked. “Sheesh, what were you waiting for?”

Sharif turned to him. “What good would it have done? We were still locked in the cages. If my rug flew around riderless, the aeglors or the terodax would have seized it. Now, though, we have a chance.”

The Sultan reached out to Sharif’s cage first with a bulky set of jangling keys. His hands trembled, but he moved with determination, thrusting the key into the lock. “As Sultan, I always owned a ceremonial set of keys to the Deepest Dungeon, even though I never used the cages in my reign.”

“I’m glad you don’t throw useless keepsakes away,” Vic said.

The lock released, and the bars swung open with a rusty screech. Startled, Gwen looked around, expecting the terodax or aeglors to come and investigate. Holding on to the bars, Sharif carefully lowered himself out of the cage. Giving his father a firm, awkward hug, he said, “Now we must help my friends.”

The young man glanced around for his flying carpet, which was sure to circle out of the shadows and come to get them. Gwen hoped it wouldn’t race through the palace and alert the aeglors that something was up. Sharif looked into his father’s eyes. “You seem much stronger.”

“I needed the strength,” the Sultan said in a brittle voice. “I took the rest of the antidote Jabir prepared for me. All of it.”

“All? But that is certainly too much. Your body cannot take it.”

“My body can take very little anymore,” the Sultan said. “I have been on borrowed time for weeks; the antidote will keep me strong for just a little while longer.”

“But when it burns out, you will have no resistance left. You will —”

“I will do what I must,” the Sultan said, reaching up to steady Lyssandra as she climbed down onto his carpet.

Gwen saw that, along with a curved sword, he still had his ornate flute in his sash. “How did you get away from Azric’s guards, Your Majesty? I know they were watching your bedroom.”

“I am old and weak. I was poisoned. They saw how little health I still had.” The Sultan looked over at her as Vic dropped onto the carpet. “I lay on my plush bed, coughing, the breath rattling in my throat. Because they knew I was dying and weak, they posted only two aeglor guards, and they were lax. They mocked me and thought me broken. I let them believe that. I took up my flute, just an old man wishing to play a little music in peace.”

With a sly smile, he held up the flute. “It can indeed make lovely music, but after I experienced several assassination attempts, I learned clever ways to defend myself. This flute can also blow poisoned darts. I keep three stored in the mouthpiece.” He wheezed and coughed, then drew a strong breath again. “I used two darts to kill my unsuspecting guards. After their bodies fell, I knew that no one would check on them, or on me, for some time. I found Jabir’s antidote and consumed it all. Then, when my strength was sufficient, I moved the bed just enough to liberate my personal flying carpet. I flew out through the balcony and came to rescue you. I was unable to coordinate my efforts with Jabir, though I suspect that he is also trying to escape.”

“He sent us a message of encouragement,” Sharif said. “That is all we know.”

“You are a formidable opponent,” Tiaret said when the Sultan flew to their cage and unlocked it.

“Your carpet is here, Sharif,” Lyssandra said.

A smaller rectangle darted across the sky, circling to hover beside the Sultan’s large carpet. Sharif helped Gwen out of the iron sphere. “Come. If two of us ride on mine, my father’s carpet will fly faster.” The two of them climbed onto the small rug.

The Sultan drew the heavy scimitar from his sash and handed it to Sharif. “Take this for protection, my son. I am too old and weak to wield it.”

As lithe as a cat, Tiaret sprang from the cage onto the Sultan’s carpet, while Sharif’s carpet hovered beside it.

“We must head for the crystal door to Elantya,” the Sultan said.

“How long do you think it will take?” Gwen asked.

“Did you bring a GPS system with you, Doc? Maybe a jet engine or two?”