Legend of the Book Keeper (18 page)

“Down the passageway! Hurry!” Randilin ordered. Cody felt himself being guided to the well’s edge; his arm was over Jade’s shoulder. Behind her neck he could see the cloaked figure standing in the open doorway to the courtyard, another blade in his hand. Weary from the loss of so much blood, Cody used his last burst of strength to hurl himself over the edge.
SPLASH!

Water rushed up and clogged his nose as his head was completely submerged. He fought to steady himself with his arms, but the force of the whirlpool was too strong and he felt himself being flung around in circles against the stone walls. He struggled to keep his eyes open, but the water bashed forcefully against his face, blinding him. For a moment he was suspended in time. He could not distinguish up from down, left from right. He felt his lungs straining for breath. He flailed his arms around in search of the surface but came up empty. The pressure of the whirlpool had dragged him deeply down the well. Then a thought dawned on him.
I am going to die
.

Strangely, the thought did not scare him. In fact, he was comforted by it. The last week of his life had destroyed everything he thought normal. Cody relaxed his muscles and released the final storage of air in his lungs. His limp body tossed and turned in the water. He thought how nice it would have been to see Jade one last time. Then everything went black.

PART TWO – THE CITY

Breached

A
pproaching your superiors is always a nerve-inducing occurrence. But doing so to proclaim bad news is even worse. This was exactly the position that Dace found himself in as he marched up the long steps to the assembly hall. As always, there was no wind blowing. Yet he still felt a chill as the dampness of the air clutched to his heavy clothes. Reaching the top of the stairs, four guards stood between him and the giant, twin, wooden doors. This was of no concern to Dace. He gave the guards a slight nod and they stepped aside, pulling the doors open as they parted. Dace gave another nod of thanks before entering.

The room was one he had entered only a handful of times in his life, and the grandness of it once again startled him. The immense room was supported by twenty large, stone pillars, arranged in rows of ten flanking the path across the chamber. The ceiling rose into a giant dome that stretched across the whole room. On the ceiling was a magnificent painting full of lush colors and intricate details. He had, of course, seen the painting many times in books during his childhood, but seldom in pe
rson. Now, standing under the gigantic masterpiece, his breath was drawn from his lungs. The painting depicted a bright light, fire and lighting busting forth from it. To the side of the light was a sphere: Earth. However, the sphere was not complete; only the lower hemisphere was visible. A second bright light radiated from within the hemisphere. Chunks of dirt and earth swirled above the half-earth in a whirlwind. Dace was lost in thought recalling his professor’s comments on the painting.

A cough sounded from across the room and stole his gaze away from the painting. He flushed, realizing he had been standing in the middle of the room staring at the roof with the wonder of a child. He inwardly kicked himself with embarrassment.
This is not the way for a trained soldier to behave! Especially now!

Regaining his cool, he continued his march across the room, dwarfed by the giant pillars that towered over him on both sides. Across the room was a platform, and on top of the platform was a large chair. It was not elegant nor was it fancifully decorated. Instead it looked like one that would be found in the corner of any humble carpentry shop. Dace slowed as he approached the chair. It was empty.

The movement of shadows drew his attention to the left. A lady gracefully appeared between two of the pillars. Dace gulped. She was breathtakingly beautiful. Her pale skin had the fairness of a child. She was veiled in a long, ice-blue dress which followed behind her in a train. The dress fluttered across the floor with smooth magnificence.

When she spoke, her words had the soft innocence of a dove, “Welcome to the Great Hall, captain Ringstar. My father is attending to other matters. I, however, will handle your concerns. What is the purpose of your coming?”

Dace’s jaw tightened as he stood hypnotized by the lady’s beauty. He fumbled as he attempted a clumsy bow.
Why did beautiful women always make him act the fool?
When he rose back up he saw that the lady made no reaction to his awkward bow—whether out of grace or annoyance was unclear,

“My Lady, the Second Passageway has been breached.” Whatever emotion this proclamation stirred in the lady was a mystery. Her face remained perfectly cloaked in her calm demeanor. When she offered no words, Dace decided to continue, “Scouts have reported that five bodies appeared an hour ago. The gatekeeper is among them, accompanied by two children. One of the men was unidentified and the fifth one . . . well . . .” Dace suddenly felt very small in the large room. He thought he would melt under the steady gaze of the beautiful lady. Taking a breath, he forced out the final words of his report, “It looks as though Sir Randilin has returned. What course should we take, my lady?”

The lady’s face remained stiffly neutral; leaving Dace to speculate what was going on behind her glazed eyes. When at last the lady spoke, it was with the same steady tone, “This is certainly unexpected . . . and ill timed. I will consult my father at once. Take a troop and retrieve the intruders. Do not take Randilin lightly; he is extremely dangerous. Bring him here . . . dead or alive. Dismissed.”

Captured

S
tars. They sparkled overhead in the dim sky.
Am I dreaming?
Cody sat up slowly. He did not know where he was; neither could he remember where he had come from. His foggy eyes soaked in the newfound dream world. The landscape was rocky and uneven. It was a desert dune comprised of flaky red rocks and dirt. High above his head he faintly made out a rough, rocky surface.
Am I in some sort of cave?
Light radiated from the sun that was nestled low on the horizon. Cody smiled. His dream world had a tranquil peace about it; the only sounds that could be heard were his own steady breathing and the rushing of a nearby river. Water?

Suddenly a wave of remembrance crashed over him. He remembered being tossed around in the whirlpool. Images of the experience came rushing back rapidly.
Did I die?
Surely he had, which meant that he was now standing in heaven. He had to admit, he wasn’t one to have given a great deal of thought to death, but he had imagined that dying would be much different.

“Cody! Cody! Cody!” He heard his voice being called from some unknown location.
God?
No, wait! The voice was a familiar one. It was Jade’s.
Did she die, too?
Cody craned his head around in search of his friend. “Jade! I’m over here! Jade!” He heard the loud thumping of footsteps approaching. He smiled; even in heaven Jade hadn’t lost her less-than-graceful feet. The footsteps morphed into a person as Jade came running over the rock dune.

“Cody! I didn’t know where you had gon
e. Where are we? I haven’t seen Randilin or Sally anywhere. Oh, my gosh, look at your leg!” Cody glanced down at his legs. They were perfectly normal.

“Um, Jade, I think you bumped your head a bit too hard, there is absolutely nothing wrong with my . . .” he stopped. It was true. His legs were undamaged. There was not even the slightest trace of a bullet wound or blood. Then it occurred to Cody that both he and Jade were completely dry. “I guess we get free healing once we get to heaven?” he concluded with a shrug. Without warning Jade’s fist came flying toward Cody and crashed into his cheek. “Ouch! What was that for!” His cheek throbbed.

“It was to snap you out of it. How does your face feel? Sore? We’re not in heaven, you doofus. Heaven doesn’t even exist. We’re just on the other end of the passageway. That whirlpool led us down here. We need to regroup with Randilin and Sally and find out where exactly
here
is. Come on.” She grabbed hold of Cody’s hands and pulled him to his feet before whipping the dust off his back. Cody smiled. Jade frowned, “Oh, and don’t think that I’m not still immeasurably furious at you for touching that door in Area 51. That was the stupidest thing you’ve done in your entire life, and believe me, that’s saying a lot.” Cody was no longer smiling. They began walking along the river, occasionally calling out for Randilin or Sally.

Cody had, in fact, been banking on the hope that Jade, in the heat of the action, might have forgotten all about his earlier foolishness. Fate had thrust the Book into his possession and along with it a mountain of responsibility. Yet, it seemed to Cody that all he had accomplished since then was to leave a trail of dumb choices and put people’s lives at risk. His thoughts went back to the words the mysterious agent had spoken in the Area 51 corridor. The part that hurt the most was that the man’s words had been true. At first, Cody had secretly cherished the excitement of discovering the Book. It had given him a sense of purpose, of significance. It was his moment to prove that he wasn’t a worthless, plain, ordinary boy, that he was special. But now he wanted nothing more than to throw the Book into the bottom of the ocean and return to his ordinary life; back when beasts weren’t trying to consume him, assassins weren’t trying to murder him, and things made sense. Most of all, he wanted to go back to a time when Jade didn’t know how weak he really was.

“Hey, Cody.” He was pulled away from his thoughts. Jade was looking directly at him, and despite her noticeable attempts to conceal it, a very slight smile had formed on her thin lips, “Thank you for taking that bullet for me. It was very brave.” Any dismal thoughts taking up space in Cody’s head evaporated quicker than they had come. He was on top of the world. And, just when he felt his usual swagger returning to his bloodstream, Jade shook her head, “Don’t let it get to your head, you moron.” But her voice lacked her previous harshness. She had to admit, it was almost impossible to stay mad at Cody.

Although they didn’t talk any further, the tension between them had vanished. Jade halted, holding out her arm to halt Cody. “Do you hear that?” He did. The sound of feet moving at a rapid pace; or were they hooves? “Look!” A cloud of dust was rising from behind the rock dunes and heading their direction. “Run!”

They took off sprinting down the river. The sound of hooves was getting louder. “It’s no use, they’re too fast. We need to hide!” They looked around them for a hiding place, but they were surrounded by endless rocky terrain.

“Hide where?!”
Thud
. Between Cody’s feet landed an arrow lodged into the dirt, its shaft still vibrating. He heard the sneering of horses behind him.

“Slowly turn around and put your hands behind your back, or the next one finds a home in your back.” Cody raised his hands and cautiously turned to face the speaker. Before him were ten men on horses, several of them had bow and arrow leveled at him. The men were all broad shouldered and clothed in light chainmail armor. Hanging from their sides in scabbards were large swords. Cody recalled the bizarre image of Wesley running toward the stairs with a similar sword.
Who are these people?
Even stranger than the men were the horses; their faces were oddly stubby and narrow with their muzzles coming to a point in a wet black nose. The hair covering their sturdy bodies was longer and shaggier than Cody had ever seen. There was a scraping sound as one of the horses pawed the rocky ground with its hoof—and Cody suddenly realized that it wasn’t a hoof at all . . . it was a paw. Instead of hooves, all the horses’ front legs had furry paws like that of a badger.
Things just keep getting stranger!

The speaker smoothly dismounted his unusual horselike steed and noiselessly landed on the ground. Off the horse, Cody could see that the man was not very tall. He had a youthful face that was aged only slightly by the presence of light stubble on his chin. His wavy hair hung neatly down to his shoulders. The features of his face gave him an almost mousy appearance. In that moment, it suddenly occurred to him that they
all
had subtle rodent-like qualities. Until seeing the mounted strangers, he had been unable to pin-point what made Randilin and Sally’s appearance somewhat abnormal.
Where are we?

The man approached Cody with a confident strut, his voice was confident and calm, “Hello, my friends. My name is Dace Ringstar, captain of the Outer-City guards. Identify yourselves.”

Cody looked over to Jade, but her eyes were already fixed on him, indicating that this time it was up to him to choose the course of action. Would there be any benefit of lying? Finally, Cody spoke boldly, “My name is Cody Clemenson and the girl with me is Jade Shimmers.” Dace smirked, “Yes, I know, we’ve learned that much already from your friends. I just wanted to test your honesty. Wolfrick, Hex . . .” He signaled to two of the guards behind him who dismounted their horses. They too were of shorter stature.