Ashley spotted the strap from her duffle bag and yanked it out of a pile, then stuffed the brick inside. As she unearthed another brick, a miniature landslide from the top of the pile exposed an enormous bare foot. “Hey!” she called. “One of the giants is still here, and it looks like both legs are intact, so I don’t think it’s the one Walter killed.” She leaned closer. “He has six toes on his foot!”
“They all do. Six fingers on each hand, too.” Sapphira continued her march toward the door. “That giant is Yereq, the one Karen replaced in the growth chamber. I’ll have to figure a way to get his body out of here, but that can wait.”
Walter wrapped his arm around Karen’s back and followed Sapphira. “I wouldn’t bring too many bricks in your bag,” he called back to Ashley. “We might have to haul it pretty far.”
“True.” Ashley dropped the second brick on the floor. “They’re probably all pretty much the same.” She hustled to catch up with Walter and took Karen’s hand.
After following Sapphira for about a minute, Walter looked over at Ashley. “What do you think?” he asked. “Does she know what she’s doing?”
Ashley blinked at the strange girl who left a fiery aura in her wake, literally blazing the path ahead of them. “I don’t know what she’s all about, but when she looks at me, I feel like she sees right through me, like I’m standing naked in front of God himself.”
“I think I know what you mean.” Walter laid a palm on his chest. “Whenever I see those bright blue eyes, my heart beats like a bongo on steroids and tries to jump up into my throat.”
Ashley felt a pang deep inside and swallowed back a sigh. “I guess if I were a guy, I’d feel the same way. She really is pretty.”
“Yeah. She is. But that’s not what causes it. I’ve been around pretty girls ever since we left West Virginia, so I’m used to it.”
A surge of warmth flooded Ashley’s soul. She glanced at Walter, but he kept his eyes focused straight ahead. She opened her mouth to reply, but Karen squeezed her hand, making her pause. Ashley squeezed hers back and kept silent. Walter had given them an honest compliment, and they both basked in its soothing tenderness. Nothing more needed to be said.
With only Sapphira’s bodily glow lighting the wide tunnel, they had to pick up their pace to stay in the oracle’s trailing halo. Karen stumbled, but Ashley caught her and braced her back.
“You going to make it?” Ashley asked.
Karen winced and continued her hobbling steps. “Depends on how far it is. I guess I needed a little more healing.”
“Almost there!” Sapphira called. Her sweet voice echoed, rolling past their ears like a lilting melody.
“I guess she heard you,” Ashley whispered. “We have to be quieter if we want to keep any secrets from her.”
“Secrets?” Karen whispered back. “Don’t you trust her?”
“I’m not sure yet, but it’s best to keep our own counsel for now—you and Walter and me.”
Karen focused on the circle of light surrounding their guide. “Maybe, but like you and Walter said before, there’s something really cool about her. She has so much confidence and life, I want to believe her. She reminds me of Bonnie.”
“Bonnie? Why?”
“Even without all that fire, she just kind of … you know … glows.”
Ashley watched Sapphira’s white hair bouncing in the midst of her full-body halo. As they passed through a darker part of the corridor, the aura strengthened, making the tunnel seem like a moonlit path. “I think I know what you mean,” Ashley said. “I’m trying to be cautious, but it feels wrong not to trust her.”
After a few minutes, Sapphira stopped under an archway at the end of the tunnel and pointed into the darkness ahead. “Ignite,” she called. As if in response, a light flickered somewhere in front of her. Still pointing, she called out, “Ignite,” several more times until the chamber beyond the archway filled with an orange glow.
She waited there, her blue eyes shining to match her radiant smile. When Walter, Ashley, and Karen joined her, they entered a huge cavern.
“I called this the museum room.” Sapphira extended her arm toward an enormous building. “And here is the museum, the first floor of the Tower of Babel.”
Ashley gazed at the magnificent structure, following its ancient architecture upward until it disappeared in the dim upper recesses. Tapering slightly as it rose, the curving wall revealed etchings of human shapes and archaic words, carved deeply into sun-baked bricks. Recessed arches framed tiny windows at precise vertical intervals, perhaps lookout points for guardians of the ancient city or maybe air vents for the tower’s inhabitants to help them find a cooling breeze. Old-fashioned lanterns lined the exterior perimeter, their flames painting the walls with an orange tint.
“It used to be filled with thousands of scrolls,” Sapphira continued, “but I could only keep the most important ones. I needed fuel for heating during the years I couldn’t get out. I usually keep the lanterns off to save oil, but I thought you might like to see the museum.”
Ashley walked slowly toward the massive doorway, still gawking at the amazing sight—one of the oldest artifices in all recorded history, once holding the greatest library the world at that time had ever known and now housing ancient documents of incalculable value.
Although she longed to browse the remains and drink in its educational bounty, her eye caught something of more immediate and practical value. Scattered around the walls she found a few scrolls; piles of old books, magazines, and newspapers; and a glass gallon-sized jug filled with clear liquid. She touched the glass and turned toward Sapphira. “Is this drinking water?”
“Please, help yourself! I collected that stuff during my visits to the land of the living, and the water is from our springs.”
Ashley withdrew her empty water bottle from her bag and filled it from the jug. After taking a long drink, she recapped it and tossed it to Walter, who shared it with Karen. Ashley picked up the jug and raised her eyebrows at Sapphira. “Want some?”
“No, thank you. I need very little to survive.”
“Really? Why is that?”
Sapphira lowered herself to the floor and sat cross-legged. “Maybe this is a good time to tell you the whole story. Now that I think about it, even if I can make a portal, it might take us to the exact spot where the giants will come out, and that probably wouldn’t be a good idea. Let’s give them some time to move out of the area.”
Walter, Ashley, and Karen joined her on the floor. With the museum looming like a tall haunted house and Sapphira’s unearthly blue eyes shining, a midnight hush fell over the chamber. Sapphira told her story from her first memory of her slavish life under Morgan’s tyrannical rule, through her adventures with the dragons, all the way to her role in rescuing the great creatures from Dragons’ Rest. When she finally finished, she let out a long sigh. “And now, we, that is, Gabriel and Roxil and I, are hoping to find Makaidos.”
“But now he’s called Timothy,” Walter said, pointing at her. “How in the universe do you find a guy who blew up in a house but didn’t show up in Kingdom Come?”
Ashley tapped his knee. “Walter! This is my father we’re talking about. Get a clue.”
“Sorry.” Walter shrugged his shoulders. “It just seems too weird to be for real.”
Ashley locked her gaze on Sapphira’s blazing eyes. “Like everything else going on around here.”
“So,” Karen said, leaning close to Sapphira, “all the dragons had to do was say Jehovah-Yasha, and they could go through the veil?”
“Yes.” Sapphira took Karen’s hand, and her glow covered the younger girl’s arm. “But for dragons, a confession is much more than just words. To penetrate the veil they had to believe in Jehovah’s Messiah in order to pass on to eternal life, just like humans do.”
Karen nodded slowly, eyeing their clasped hands as the glow spread up to her shoulder. “That makes sense.”
Ashley took a sip from her water bottle and recapped it. “So now that you’ve eaten from the tree of life, do you think you might live forever?”
Sapphira pulled her hand, but Karen hung on, covering it with her other hand. As the glow washed over Karen’s face, Sapphira smiled at her. “I don’t think I would die a natural death, but maybe I could be killed.”
“But if anyone tries to kill you …” Walter slapped his hands together. “Smack! He gets the hammer.” He pushed against the floor and rose to his feet. “That was a cool story, but I’m ready to get out of this creepy place.”
Sapphira drew the clutch of hands to her face and kissed Karen’s ring finger, her lips passing across the rubellite and turning the gem white for a brief moment. Releasing Karen, she got up and walked past a pair of matching sleep mats, stopping at a clear spot on the floor. “The portal used to be right here,” she said, spreading out her arms, “so gather around, and I’ll try to get everyone into the fire.”
Ashley followed her to the open area. “Into the fire?”
“It’s the only way.” Sapphira brushed a hand across the air. The lanterns surrounding the museum winked out one by one until only two remained lit. “Trust me. You won’t feel anything except a tingly sensation.”
Her eyes adjusting to the dimmer room, Ashley edged closer, a new anxiety weakening her legs. “How about Gabriel and Roxil? Will they come with us?”
Sapphira laid her arm around an invisible bystander. “Gabriel’s already right next to me, and Roxil’s behind him, so I think they’ll come along. If not, I’ll try to come back and get whoever is left.”
Bright plumes of fire erupted from Sapphira’s palms. As she waved her arms in a wide circle over her head, a cyclone of flames swirled above, growing in diameter. Walter, Ashley, and Karen huddled underneath, and a fiery wall lowered around them, a cylindrical curtain of dancing orange tendrils.
In spite of the warmth, Ashley shivered. The yellow tongues licked the air as they created a stream of hot, dry wind that slurped the moisture from her eyes. She shut them tightly. A tingle crawled along her skin, like a swarm of centipedes creeping up her back. Then, with a loud whoosh, the hot air swept upward, and damp coolness returned.
“Well, that wasn’t so bad,” she said, opening her eyes. “In fact, it was kind of”
Ashley gulped. The museum was still there! The old books, dirty scrolls, and sleeping mats were all still there! She swung her head from side to side. Walter, Karen, and Sapphira were gone! Now shivering harder, she hugged herself, rubbing her upper arms. “Walter?” she called, her voice quaking. “Karen?”
No answer.
She took a timid step backwards, but her elbow struck something solid. She wheeled around and came face-to-face with a dragon!
“Aaaugh!” She fell backwards and landed on her seat. “Who are you?” she shouted, pedaling her feet to scoot away.
The dragon, sitting on its haunches, cast twin eyebeams on the floor between them. “I am your sister. At least that is what I am told.”
Ashley eyed the red dots on the floor and followed the beams to the scaly beast. “Roxil?”
“Yes,” the dragon replied, taking a step toward her, “and since you can see me now, we obviously have a problem.”
“Problem?” Ashley slid farther back. “You’d better believe there’s a problem. Sapphira and the others are gone, and we’re trapped here.”
“That is exactly my point.” Roxil swept her tail across the empty space between her and Ashley. “Sapphira is gone and has left us in Hell, so to speak. When I first came out of Dragons’ Rest, Gabriel and I were physically solid. Then, we became merely energy for a short time until the giants and Sapphira departed. Now I am physical again.”
The dragon’s nonthreatening, matter-of-fact tone set Ashley at ease, at least about being trapped with a dragon. The talk about Hell, on the other hand, racked her nerves. She rose slowly to her feet and brushed dirt from her hands. “What do you make of it?”
“This is merely a guess, but it fits all the circumstances. For a short time, this place was transported to the world of the living, so you were able to descend into it, and the giants were able to climb out. During that period, Gabriel and I lost our physical forms. Just now, Sapphira created a new portal that took her and your friends out but sent us back to the land of the dead. Since I actually died in the living world, it makes sense that I would be physical here and something of a ghost there.”
Ashley pointed at herself. “What about me? Does that mean that I’m”
“Dead?” Roxil opened her claws and looked at their sharp points. “Not necessarily. Other living humans have been abandoned here before.”
Ashley tried to hide her tight-throated swallow. “Abandoned?”
“Desolate. Deserted. Forsaken. Choose your own synonym.”
“But why? What did I ever do to Sapphira?”
“Who can tell? She is an odd one to say the least. She destroyed Dragons’ Rest, a perfectly reasonable place for dragons to spend eternity.” Roxil’s eyes glowed with a brighter red. “Long ago, a young man named Elam tagged along with her to Dragons’ Rest. On her most recent visit, she brought Gabriel along to help her demolish our home, and now she has taken your Walter to do who-knows-what. She seems to enjoy collecting young men as she blazes a destructive path.”
Trying not to shake, Ashley glanced at her wristwatch. “Maybe we should give her time. She said she would come back if she left anyone behind. It’s only been a few minutes.”
Roxil snorted. “Put your faith in humans if you wish. But you shouldn’t hold your breath”—the dragon smiled scornfully“—unless you really want to be dead.”
The dragon’s last word sliced into Ashley’s mind. Dead. The very last word she wanted to think about, a state she didn’t want to consider.
Lowering her chin to her chest, she closed her eyes. There had to be an answer. There had to be a way out. Taking a deep breath, she finally settled down and concentrated on the events of the last hour, going backwards in timeSapphira’s story, the journey to the museum chamber, the giants climbing out of the mobility room.
She snapped her fingers. “The mobility room! I can still get up to the staircase and climb out.”
“But the rope is on the floor,” Roxil said. “How do you expect to get up to the ceiling?”
“Can you give me a boost?” Ashley started toward the corridor and called back. “You can get there, can’t you? The corridors between here and there looked big enough.”