The Shaktra

  Amma hesitated. “Yes.”

  “There are questions you and Trae appear reluctant to answer. Why is that?”

  “Neither of us is trying to hide anything from you. Yet there are answers you ask for that cannot be simply handed over.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  Amma gestured to the bedroom. “Geea sat here many years trying to figure out how to defeat the Shaktra. Long before it attacked, she knew it was coming. But in all that time she never developed a strategy to confront it. Even with all her knowledge of the Yanti, she did not feel she could defeat the Shaktra by force.”

  “Are you saying the war is hopeless then?”

  “Geea never gave into despair. Her mind was subtle, her plans went deep. She chose to become human when she did for a purpose.”

  “Do you know what that purpose was?” Ali asked.

  Amma shook her head. “It is not something that can be explained with words. You must follow the path set before you, and you will come to an understanding of her mind that is much more profound than anything I can say to you right now.”

  “You are saying Geea kept her own counsel?” Ali asked.

  Amma nodded. “Most of the time, you did.”

  Ali felt the shifting points of view disorienting.

  “I appreciate what you say, and I will take on faith that you will tell me what you can. At the same time I need to know more details about the Shaktra. Paddy and Drash have told me it came from the Isle of Greesh. Is that true?”

  “Yes.”

  “That was a stronghold of the fairies?”

  “For centuries the fairies had controlled Greesh. Only in recent times was a layer of ancient ruins found there. Where they came from, no one knows. It is said that there the Shaktra discovered a great power, and was corrupted by it, and began to use it to build and consolidate its own kingdom, so as to destroy not only this world, but the yellow world as well.”

  “Did fairies help the Shaktra explore these ruins?”

  “At first. Then it began to use the power it had discovered to alter them.”

  “It made the first scaliis?”

  “Yes, and the scabs. Somehow it learned to mark every type of elemental, so that whoever was touched by it, was forced to obey its will.”

  “The marked ones I encountered were docile. Do they fight in battle?”

  “When the Shaktra awakens them, they turn into fierce fighters. The ones you saw on the road had already been discarded by the enemy, and sent off to become scaliis.”

  Amma finished applying the red cream, and carefully wrapped the injury in a green silk bandage. When she was done, Ali stood and paced her old room.

  “There is something that makes no sense to me,” Ali said. “Before I left my world to come here, I ran into two people that had been marked. One was a teenage boy, who might have deliberately walked in front of a sports utility vehicle, and gotten himself killed. He had the identical mark on his forehead that the fairies I ran into on the road had.”

  “Who was the other one?” Amma asked.

  “A little girl, Nira, and she lives in the same town as the guy I just described. Nira is about six, appears severely autistic. In that way she is like the marked ones I met. But there’s something unique about her. When I stared into her eyes, I felt a vastness. It’s hard to describe, but it was like she was a part of something that was bigger than humanity and the elementals combined. At the same time she is unable to take care of herself. I didn’t know what to make of her. To top it off, her mother—a powerful businesswoman in that town—seems to be connected to my mother’s kidnapping.” Ali paused. “Do you know what any of this means?”

  “They sound like they were both touched by the Shaktra,” Amma said.

  “But it is here. Trae said it was here.”

  “It is a mystery you must explore. Tell me, Geea, where do you expect to find your mother?”

  Ali sat on the bed beside her. “I was hoping you could advise me.”

  Amma reached out, and this time she did touch her hair, and Ali was warmed by the comfort it brought her.

  “You are already on your way, you have chosen a path. You tell me, where are you going?” Amma asked.

  Ali sat back. “When I was on Earth, and I thought of my mother late at night, before going to sleep, I often had this dream where I was flying through the air beside a bunch of floating mountains. Now that I have seen the kloudar, I recognize them, and I feel they are the key to finding her. But I’m not sure if she is there. I have no reason to believe she is.”

  “Do you know what my queen used to say about reason?”

  “What?” Ali asked.

  “That it was overrated.”

  “If I do choose to go to the kloudar, will you come with me?”

  Amma bowed her head. “I would be honored to accompany you.”

  CHAPTER

  20

  Ms. Smith might have done Steve and Cindy a favor by warning them that the static position of their arms over their heads would become unbearable. When the muscle spasms first started in their shoulders, they at least knew they were in for a rough ride. Yet Steve was shocked how soon the cramping drowned out the pain in his burned hand. His blistered palm became like a scratch.

  Their corner of the cave was a box, a prison, its dimensions defined by the light and shadows the kerosene lantern emitted. Steve was surprised Ms. Smith had left them any light at all, but maybe she had wanted them to see each other’s suffering. The air was warm and dry, the reddish walls were made of crusty iron dust and burnt-out memories. If Steve let his vision blur, it was easy to imagine he was in hell.

  Cindy sighed, dirty sweat on her brow. “I would give anything to put my arms down for five minutes,” she said.

  “That’s the point of all this. The Dragon Lady said it herself. When she returns, we’ll be anxious to tell her everything she wants to know,” Steve said.

  “I think we already made it clear we don’t know what she wants to know.”

  Steve nodded. “She is disappointed in us.”

  Cindy looked over. “Do you think she’s going to kill us?”

  “Do you want the optimistic version, or the truth?”

  “The truth,” Cindy said.

  “She cannot let us go after treating us this way, and revealing so much about her past. Our only way out of this is to escape, or else for Ali to come to our rescue.”

  “Ali doesn’t even know we’re here.”

  “When she returns from the elemental world, and finds us gone, she’ll come here.”

  Cindy shook her head. “She warned us to stay away from Ms. Smith. She told us the woman was dangerous. We should have listened to her.”

  “True. But we went on this hunt to help Ali.”

  “And to feel better about ourselves,” Cindy added.

  “You were interested in Ms. Smith because you were worried about Nira. You are suffering in a noble cause.”

  Cindy coughed. “It doesn’t make it any easier.”

  “Are you scared?”

  “Terrified. So are you. Because you’re right about that woman. She is evil to the core. She is never going to let us live.”

  “What do you think about what Nira’s mother said about her own daughter?”

  “Lies. Nira’s a special child, it’s obvious. She’s just autistic.”

  Steve frowned. “I wonder if she is even that. I wonder if her mother hasn’t put some kind of spell on her.”

  “I thought the same thing. Ms. Smith is like a witch. Did you see the way she controls Karl?”

  “She treated him like dog, and he didn’t seem to mind,” Steve said.

  “He didn’t look like he was about to turn on her any time soon,” Cindy agreed.

  “He always was a jerk.”

  “Why do you think she gave us that weird lecture at the dining table?”

  Steve considered. “She was spouting her point of view on humanity, and which direction she thinks it sh
ould go. What surprised me was, that for such a smart woman, her arguments were so cliché. Practically every tyrant in recent history has said similar things. For someone who makes such exotic games, she seems uncreative.”

  “What did you think of her main programmer?” Cindy asked.

  “He seemed like a nice guy, very innocent. It might be like Ali said, that he is the real brains behind the company.”

  “Odd how he is blind,” Cindy said.

  “Lots of people are blind.”

  “You know what I mean. He writes code to form graphic images, but he can’t see what he’s creating. How’s that possible?”

  “Didn’t Ali say he works hand-in-hand with Ms. Smith?”

  “Yes. Our lovely Ms. Smith. Who just happens to be psycho,” Cindy muttered.

  Steve fought with his upper shackles, which were attached to the wall with a thick steel bolt. The act was futile but he found himself doing it every fifteen minutes anyway.

  “Her revelation as she left was pretty big,” Steve said.

  “She was just playing with you. She can’t be Lucy Pillar. She’s dead.”

  “It’s not that simple. There’s a mystery surrounding Lucy’s death. We ran into it earlier. The authorities never did identify her body.”

  “You heard what Hector said. Lucy was burned in a car accident a year before the power plant explosion—on over eighty percent of her body. I might hate the woman but she doesn’t have a mark on her. She’s one of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen.”

  Steve glanced over. “She looks almost too beautiful.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you ever feel, while looking at her, that you could not totally focus on her?”

  “No. What are you talking about?” Cindy asked.

  Steve frowned. “I’m not sure.”

  Time went by. With the pain in their shoulders and arms—which was steadily moving into their spines—they had nothing but slow moving time. Steve tried to think of other things to distract himself from the agony and it did not do one bit of good. His shirt was soaked with sweat, and he was so hot he felt as if he might melt. He would have given a lot for a glass of water. More than anything, he prayed Ali would come soon.

  It might have been after sunset when Cindy started to whimper. Steve couldn’t see his watch but it felt like hours had passed since they had been imprisoned. Cindy had closed her eyes and the sound she was making seemed to come from so deep inside her that it shook Steve to the core. He tried talking to her, soothing her, but she ignored him. She was not being a baby, and she was not trying to make him feel bad. She was in pain, and there was no way to stop it, and it kept getting worse. She couldn’t help herself.

  Steve wanted to weep, too, but he feared that if he started down that road, he would end up screaming and would not be able to stop. He felt if he lost it for even a second, Ms. Smith would get exactly what she wanted, and Ali would not be able to stop her from destroying the world. In the delirium of his pain, he began to see the woman as the Kabrosh character in the Overlord game. Kabrosh had burned to death on a radioactive battlefield and then—at least according to the witch—had come back to life.

  Then he saw Nira. Little Nira, with her lonely lost eyes.

  She was standing right in front of him, holding a lit candle.

  Steve blinked and she did not go away. She was staring right at him.

  “Cindy, Nira is here,” Steve said.

  Cindy stopped moaning and opened her eyes. “Nira!” she cried.

  “Does your mother know you’re here?” Steve asked Nira.

  Nira just stared at him, the flame of the candle in her dark violet eyes.

  “She knew enough to light a candle and find her way down here,” Cindy said. “She can’t be that mentally handicapped.”

  Steve nodded. “It’s possible she knows these caves inside out. She might explore them when her mother is not around.” He added, “How are you feeling?”

  Cindy nodded. “A lot better than I was a minute ago. Do you think it’s possible we could talk Nira into helping us escape?”

  “I think she’s here to help us. But God only knows what she understands.” Steve shook his shackles. “Nira, do you know where the key is to these locks? Can you help us with these locks?”

  “Keep it simple,” Cindy advised, scanning the immediate area. “Maybe if she could give us a piece of pipe, or even a stick, we could use it as a lever on the bolt that holds the shackles in place.”

  Steve nodded to the far left, outside the circle of light cast by the lantern. “There is a metal bar lying on the ground over there.”

  Cindy got excited. “Let’s try to get her to bring it to you.”

  Alas the plan, although simple, was too complex for Nira to follow. The girl stood there and stared at them. Even when she did look around, she did not seem to know what they meant by “metal bar.” She never focused on what they were pointing to.

  Just when they were beginning to think her visit had been useless, Nira suddenly put down her lit candle on a nearby oil drum and approached Steve. Reaching both arms up over her head, the little girl placed her hands on the center of Steve’s chest. He felt an unbelievable warmth flow into him. It was as if he had been dropped into a hot tub, but without the water. As Nira continued to touch him, he felt himself growing stronger. To his utter amazement, the cramps in his arms and shoulders vanished. It was as if she were healing him.

  The same way Ali could heal people.

  Nira held him for perhaps two minutes, then moved on to Cindy, and the sigh of relief from his friend did Steve’s heart good. Her face relaxed visibly, as did her posture, and she burst into tears, but they were good tears. When Nira released her all Cindy could do was whisper “thank you” over and over again. Steve thanked her as well, and tried to stop her from leaving when Nira picked up her candle and turned toward the direction she had entered. But the little girl left without another glance at him.

  It was then Steve noticed the blisters on his palm had vanished. He told Cindy about it and she shook her head in awe.

  “That girl has Ali’s power,” Cindy said.

  “She might be even more powerful,” Steve said. “When she was touching me, I felt as if it was nothing for her to heal me, not the slightest strain.”

  “I felt the same way. Like she was so big, and I was so small, it was easy for her to take away my pain.”

  Steve had to smile. “Too bad she didn’t leave us a screwdriver.”

  Yet it was only a couple of minutes later that Steve noticed that the shackle behind his once burnt palm was loose. It was a miracle on par with the cessation of their cramps, because he knew he had yanked on the bolt only a few minutes before Nira’s arrival. Yet now the bolt was three quarters of the way out from the wall. He told Cindy the good news and she got excited.

  “She did it, I know she did it!” Cindy exclaimed.

  Steve started twisting and pulling like crazy. Dust fell from the sides of the bolt, and it began to move. “I don’t care who is responsible, as long as we get out of here,” he said.

  The bolt popped out of the wall five minutes later, and finally Steve was able to bring down his right arm and stretch it. Of course it was true he had only one free limb, but it was enough to give him leverage with the rest of the bolts. He worked on his left wrist next, and by constantly turning the bolt left and right, it slowly began to ease out of the wall. Cindy cheered him all the way, and within an hour of the little girl’s visit, he had freed himself. Yet it was relative freedom. He could move, but he still wore the shackles, and they were both still at the bottom of a cave whose dimensions and design they did not understand.

  Steve used the metal pipe to pry Cindy loose, and she hugged him as she broke free of the wall and gave him a quick kiss. It was nice, because it reminded him of the kiss Ali had given him on top of Pete’s Peak after she had sent the elemental army back to their own realm. Cindy shook in his arms as he held her.
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  But he let her carry the lantern as they slowly made their way through the dark toward the metal ladder they had taken on their initial journey into this hellish place. He wanted to keep his hands free in case they were attacked. It was odd but Steve felt as if his sense of direction was off, as did Cindy. When they found a ladder, they spent five minutes discussing whether it was the right one. In the end they decided that as long as it was going up, they were taking it, and they did in fact climb up three levels before they entered another cave that did not look familiar. They didn’t know whether to go right or left.

  So they went right, and the cave began to twist and turn, and then they decided to backtrack, but they came to a fork in the road that they did not remember, and they went to the left. All the while their shackles jingled like pockets full of change, and the light of the lantern flickered like the rising and falling of their hopes.

  Then they came to a sharp turn; they had to go right, no choice. Cindy held the lantern up high as they took the corner, but a flash of silver glistened in the dark, and the shadows abruptly wavered and then crashed into pitch black as Cindy let out a scream and the lantern disappeared.

  A beam of white light exploded in their eyes.

  Karl’s flashlight. Karl himself, grinning like a white ghost from a black grave.

  He held his switchblade in his right hand, and it was stained with blood.

  Although she gripped the injury, red fluid flowed from Cindy’s right wrist.

  Without warning, Steve realized, he had cut her and she had dropped the lantern.

  Reaching out, Karl pressed the tip of the blade close to Steve’s heart.

  “Going somewhere?” he asked in his fiendish voice.

  CHAPTER

  21

  It was after dark when Ali went to visit Drash in the palace basement, in a storage area where sacks of grains and dried fruit were kept. From the look of the numerous torn burlap bags, it appeared he had helped himself to the fairies’ food—something she didn’t begrudge him in the slightest. Ali was both pleased and a little surprised that so many of the grains matched the ones on Earth. When Amma had fed her in her room, she had brought her a bowl of yogurt. Yet the berries buried in the yogurt had tasted like nothing she had ever put in her mouth before—sweeter than strawberries, more textured than blueberries, and possessing a soothing aftertaste that stayed with her long after she had emptied her bowl. Amma had called the berries jambis.