The Shaktra

  Drash looked disappointed. “Queen Geea spoke to my father many times before she left for the yellow world. Even then, with all her power, she could not persuade him from forming an alliance with the Shaktra.”

  “How many years ago was that?” Ali asked.

  Drash considered. “I was young then. It must have been thirteen years ago.”

  “That is when Geea left?” she asked, although she knew the answer. It was no coincidence that she was thirteen years old.

  “Yes,” Drash said.

  “Has Uleestar been overrun by the Shaktra?” Ali asked.

  “Drash heard that it has been emptied.”

  “Emptied? Not occupied?” she asked.

  “Drash has heard that there are no scaliis there.”

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “Drash does not know why.”

  “You mentioned something called the ice maidens,” Ali said. “What are those?”

  Drash shook his head. “No one in this world understands the ice maidens. They live on the kloudar, and yet, they are not bound by them, for they can ride the kloudar to the other side of Anglar, and from there leave this world.” Drash added, “It’s said they’re from the blue universe, but only come to this world to help with the dead.”

  Ali felt a chill. “How do they help with the dead?”

  “They take care of them until they live again.”

  Ali did not understand his reply. “Where do they take care of the dead?”

  “On the kloudar,” Drash said.

  “Do the dragons ever attack the kloudar when the ice maidens are there?”

  Drash shook his head. “Drash’s father would not be that foolish.”

  “Why don’t the ice maidens help the elementals defeat the Shaktra?”

  “They are ice maidens. They do not concern themselves with such things.”

  The others were showing signs of exhaustion, and Ali was feeling her own fatigue. It had been two days since she had slept. She decided to forgo the questions for the time being, which suited Farble and Paddy. They moved to the far side of the ledge, away from Drash, and laid down near each other, using stones for pillows. Maybe their rivalry was finally over, she thought, remembering how the troll had wept when Paddy had been attacked by the scab. The two fell asleep in minutes.

  Ali prayed she could do likewise. Stretching out her sleeping bag, the pain in her hand seemed to get worse. Ra was sensitive, he noticed her discomfort. Again he pulled out his opium cigarettes.

  “There’s no shame in taking something for the pain,” he said.

  “I’m afraid to,” she admitted.

  “What are you afraid of? I know how much you should take. You will know it when you begin to smoke it. Take enough to dull your pain so that you can rest. From the sound of it, we’re going to have a hard day tomorrow. You have to rest to be at full strength.”

  “I’m afraid to do anything that will dull my mind while I’m in this world.”

  “We’re safe this high up, particularly with Drash standing guard,” Ra said.

  “It’s not that. So much of what we will do next is dependent on me regaining my fairy memories. They come back slowly, as I walk around this place, and see the kloudar, and stare at the green sun. I’m hesitant to take the opium because I feel it will block that process.”

  Ra shook his head. “You’re as much human as you are fairy. That burn on your hand must be killing you. I couldn’t sleep through that kind of pain.”

  Ali took her remaining stardust out of her backpack. “This powder will help.”

  Ra frowned. “What is it?”

  Ali hesitated. She noticed Drash looking over. “It’s fairy stardust. It’s made from gold, using a special process.”

  Drash moved a bit closer, peered at her stuff. “Drash was told that stardust was a dark blue, darker than even Anglar,” he said.

  “Who told you that?” Ali asked. Her stardust was a pale blue.

  Drash shrugged. “It’s a rumor Drash has heard since he was young.”

  Ali glanced up at Anglar, the blue moon, nodded. “I probably can’t make the real thing in my world. But it still helps. I’ll take a bunch, and I think I’ll be able to sleep.”

  Ra was doubtful. “If you can’t, you wake me.”

  Ali smiled. “So you can sit up and suffer with me?”

  Ra nodded. “I would stay awake with you, Ali, to keep you company.”

  She liked when he said her name. “I know you would, Ra.”

  She wished him sweet dreams and Ra climbed into his sleeping bag and, like the elementals, he appeared to quickly fall asleep. She wasn’t sure what Drash was up to. He retreated to the far corner of the ledge, and closed one eye, but the other remained open; it seemed to be scanning the area. For all she knew dragons never closed both eyes at once. His breathing, which was deep and slow to begin with, slowed down further, and soon he was inhaling and exhaling only once a minute.

  Ali swallowed half her remaining stardust and crawled into her sleeping bag, using her rolled-up jacket as a pillow. Ra was on her right, only three feet away, and on her left was the edge of the cliff, and the vast nighttime view of the elemental world. For a long time she laid there, staring up at the floating kloudar and the immovable Anglar, gazing at the rivers, Elnar and Lestre. The beauty of the view was outweighed only by the sorrow she felt for the world. There was no two ways about it. She had to destroy the Shaktra, and bring peace back to the elementals.

  At some point she must have closed her eyes. Faintly, she began to hear the music of inner space, the flutes and bells and stringed instruments, and the gentle sounds carried her on a soothing wave deep inside, until she felt as if she was floating in the center of her heart. Only the space was not constricted, like her physical heart, but vast and peaceful, a world unto itself. For a long time, it seemed, she drifted in that place, not awake, but not asleep, either. And it seemed, inside her heart, or perhaps it was inside her soul, that she saw and felt many things that she had long ago forgotten. . . .

  Dangerous trials that changed kouls into dragons . . .

  A river that flowed backwards, in the night . . .

  A dark blue powder, that could kill or heal . . .

  A crystal palace at the tip of an enchanted island . . .

  And an ice cave, on the highest kloudar, where an ancient secret slept . . .

  All these things she saw, not with her eyes or her mind, but with something else . . . something she could not have described with human words.

  Ali awoke with a start, sitting up in her sleeping bag.

  There was a strange noise, it could have been a moan, coming from nearby.

  Ali scanned the area and saw that Drash was gone. Standing, she crept in the direction of the sound, around the corner of the ledge where the koul had earlier laid down. Unfortunately, the ledge came to an end, and she had to move forward carefully on the steep side of the rock wall with her fingers and her bare feet digging into whatever tiny crevasse they could find. Despite the danger, and the pain it caused her right hand, she kept going. The noise grew louder. It definitely sounded like Drash was in pain.

  Ali found him a minute later, on another ledge, frantically twisting and turning his massive worm-shaped body, and banging his huge head against the stone as if trying to alleviate his agony. As she watched him it seemed that his very form was changing. Were those legs he was sprouting? Was his tail lengthening and sharpening? It was true: she could see the changes with her own eyes, and somehow she knew it was not a bad thing. On the contrary, something wonderful was happening to Drash.

  “Are you in pain?” she asked gently.

  “Yes!” he gasped, still squirming, but managing to look at her with his red eyes. They were both open and blazing with ten times as much light as before.

  “Do you know what is happening to you?” she asked.

  “I’m dying!” he yelled. It was interesting to hear him use the “I” pronoun.

  Ali shook
her head. “You’re not dying, you’re growing. You’re taking the first step toward becoming a dragon.”

  It was his turn to shake his head, and there was bitterness in his face. That is not possible. Drash has not passed the first test. Drash tried to pass it. Drash means . . . my father set it up for Drash to pass. But . . .” He added shamefully. “I am a coward.”

  Ali came closer, put her hand on his head, stroked him. “I went deep just now, and slipped into a trance, and it helped me remember many things, not just about fairies, but about dragons, as well. You were right, I was friends with them for many years, and I knew your father. Because of that I know the trials a koul must go through to change into a dragon. Now I don’t know what happened the first time you tried to take the first test, and you don’t need to talk about it, but I do know that in the first trial, a koul must risk his life to save another. Don’t you see? You did that this evening when you rescued us from the scaliis! You passed the first test, and because of that your body is becoming more like a dragon.” She added, “It’ll change further when you take the next two tests.”

  Drash stopped thrashing, and listened, yet his doubts remained. He spoke in a troubled voice. “Drash did not enter that gully to save you from the scaliis. Drash went down there to die.”

  Ali was shocked. “Why?”

  “Because Drash failed the first test! Because Drash is the cowardly son of a cowardly father! Don’t you understand? Drash is the only son of the only dragon king in all of history that has chosen to betray all the elementals simply to place himself and his friends above this world before it is their rightful time.” Drash added, “It doesn’t matter what Drash did this evening. His father is still a traitor. It changes nothing.”

  “That’s not true. Already you are changing, and that is the first step on the road to repairing the damage your father has done. You lie to yourself when you say you were trying to commit suicide this evening. I know that is not true. Look, you saved us! And because you saved us you are being rewarded right now.”

  Panting in pain, Drash looked at her miserably. “This is a reward?”

  Ali nodded. “This pain will not last, the change will soon be complete. Then you can travel with us tomorrow, to a secret place I have remembered, and you can take the second test.”

  Drash was puzzled. “Why are you so anxious to help Drash become a dragon?”

  Ali pointed to the kloudar. “I had this waking dream right now, and I have had parts of it before. I had it back home in the third world even before I knew I was a fairy. And each time, in this vision, I flew up to the kloudar. Now I know I must go there, that my path lies that way.”

  “Drash still does not understand.”

  Ali had to laugh. “The kloudar are way up in the sky. Either I regain my fairy wings in the next few days, or else you’re going to have to fly me up there!”

  CHAPTER

  16

  Ms. Smith answered the door, Nira by her side, and Steve and Cindy both did a huge double take. The woman had long blond hair, wore a black silk pant suit, and was clearly gorgeous. But it was her eyes that made them shudder. They were a bright green, emeralds harvested from the Earth’s most blessed cave, and they could not have looked more like Ali’s eyes. They even had the same penetrating light. Yet Steve could not have said if a warm heart shone behind them, although Sheri Smith grinned as she opened the door.

  “So here are the famous Steve and Cindy. Welcome to my home,” she said.

  Steve nodded. “To us, you’re the one who’s famous. We’re both big fans of your computer games.”

  “We especially love Omega Overlord,” Cindy said.

  Sheri Smith put a hand on top of Nira’s head as the little girl stared directly at them without blinking. It was impossible to tell if she remembered them, but Steve liked to think she did. He was happy to see Nira there in either case, feeling Sheri Smith was less likely to gut them with a knife with her daughter in the house. They still had no idea if Sheri Smith was Ali’s Shaktra or not, but Steve was not likely to forget the e-mails he had uncovered.

  “That was the game that made my fortune,” Ms. Smith said.

  “We were playing it this morning, before we came here,” Steve said.

  “True fans! I love it!” The woman gestured for them to enter, and they followed her toward the dining room. “I have a guest over right now, an employee, but he’s just leaving,” Ms. Smith said. “He’s our lead system designer, Mike Havor. Have you heard of him?”

  “Can’t say we have,” Steve replied. Ali had spoken to them about Mr. Havor, at the park where they had met Nira and Rose. She said he was a blind genius who was the brains behind many of Omega’s most successful games.

  “Mike is very nice, but I’m afraid I work him too hard,” Ms. Smith said as they entered the kitchen. A very pale man, with slick black hair, sat hunched at the table. He wore thick sunglasses and a tan sports coat, white slacks, and no tie. He smiled in their direction, and Steve was struck by the gentleness in his expression.

  “I heard that, and I must say it is not true,” he said. “I never work longer than I want to.”

  Sheri Smith introduced them. “Mike, this is Steve and Cindy, from Breakwater. They have been helping Rose take care of Nira the last two days. I told you about them.”

  Mr. Havor nodded, a smile on his dry lips. “Pleased to meet you both. I heard you rescued Nira when she got lost in town?”

  “We’re not sure if she was really lost,” Steve said, noticing that Ms. Smith knew they were from Breakwater, when they had told Rose they were from Bale. Clearly the woman had been researching them.

  “And we didn’t rescue her, we just offered her ice cream,” Cindy said.

  Mr. Havor stood. “Well, I’m happy I got to meet you in either case. But now I must apologize, for I have to get back to work.”

  Ms. Smith chuckled. “I told you kids, I work the poor man to death.”

  Mr. Havor nodded vaguely in their direction. “I do hope we are able to meet again. Steve, Cindy.”

  “That would be nice,” Steve replied, and watched as the man expertly used his white cane to find his way to the front door, and then out of the house. Steve turned to Ms. Smith. “It is safe for him to walk around town?” he asked.

  “He could find his way from here to my offices in his sleep,” she said. “Mike has lived in this town for many years. He knows all the obstacles, and everyone knows him. I never worry when he’s out on his own.”

  “It’s amazing he can design games he can’t see,” Cindy said.

  Ms. Smith stared in the direction Mr. Havor had disappeared, and an odd note entered her voice. “There are many amazing things about that man. He has been with me since the start of my company. I owe him a lot.” Then she shook her head. “But let me serve you lunch, and then we can talk.”

  “Rose is not around?” Cindy asked.

  “No. I gave her the day off.”

  Lunch was simpler than the day before—roast turkey, mashed potatoes, and green peas—but Steve found it just as satisfying. Ms. Smith served them efficiently, and it was not until she was filling his plate that he noticed she wore thin white gloves. He didn’t know how he had missed them at first, but there they were.

  Ms. Smith offered them their choice of soda, while she had a glass of red wine. Even though Nira sat at the table with them, her mother did not offer her any food, and the little girl did not seem to mind. She just sat and stared.

  Steve asked Ms. Smith about the inspiration for Omega Overlord. The woman was quick to admit Mr. Havor had brought her the seed idea, but at the same time she tried to explain the deeper philosophy behind it.

  “Overlord tries to strip the direction of humanity down to the basics,” she said. “We are here, we are alive, and we want to survive. Now how are we going to do that? It points out that so far we’ve been lucky to progress as a species, stumbling around in the dark the way we have. But now that technology has reached a certain level, ha
rd choices have to be made. The most obvious is probably the most important. Do we continue to allow people to breed indiscriminately? It is the point of view of the game that the answer must be no. Our genes are our wealth. If we squander it randomly, we will be left with nothing, and we will not survive as a race.”

  Steve realized the woman was not only expounding the game’s point of view, but her own. “But who’s to say which genes survive?” he asked.

  “It doesn’t matter, someone intelligent, someone powerful, possessed of vision. Overlord tries to make that point with the Kabrosh character. He’s the first one to see that not only must our genes be controlled, but that the fusion of machines and humans is inevitable. That is Kabrosh’s strength. He knows what is necessary, and he goes for it He doesn’t let primitive morality stand in his way.”

  “I always saw Kabrosh as a villain,” Cindy said.

  Ms. Smith sipped her wine. “Nonsense. He’s the hero of the game.”

  “But it’s possible to win the game by killing him,” Steve said.

  Ms. Smith stared at him with her green eyes. Physically, it was true, they were identical to Ali’s, but the feeling that came off them bore no relationship to Ali’s warmth. Ms. Smith was a smart woman with some pretty weird ideas floating around in her head.

  “You think so, huh? You have only mastered one level of the game. If you keep playing and explore all its levels, you’ll find Kabrosh returns and starts to take over the world. He actually returns in an altered form, as a cyborg, and he wields great power.”

  “It sounds like you admire him,” Cindy said.

  Ms. Smith chuckled. “I designed him, of course I have to admire him.”

  They ate for a while in silence before Steve asked how she knew they were from Breakwater. He thought the question bold, perhaps risky, but felt they had to take a few chances if they were to find out what Ali needed to know. Ms. Smith did not appear put off by the question. Nor did she answer it clearly.

  “I’m always curious about those who are curious about my daughter,” she said.