Teruvisa: Two Kingdoms

  Chapter 11

  Dreggan Wins

  When his next HST memory started, Jared was no longer in the security control room. He wasn’t a baby anymore, either. In fact, he was walking. Judging by how close his eye level was to the ground, Jared guessed he was probably about two years old.

  His mother, Amy, was holding Jared’s hand. She led him down a hallway. His father, Mike, was on the other side and slightly ahead of him.

  His parents were walking slowly and being very cautious—looking around every corner and speaking in hushed tones. All the hallways and pathways they walked along were dimly lit and totally deserted.

  Later, after they had entered a pathway, they went a short distance and stopped in front of a wall console. Mike called down a mini shuttle.

  Amy turned to her husband. “What were you saying about Danielle and Paul?”

  As they got in the mini shuttle, he said, “I’ve made arrangements with Paul’s uncle and Dorn for us to take Paul once we get to Earth.”

  “Really?” Jared’s mother smiled. “That’s wonderful. Jared will have a friend his own age to play with—a friend with the same special gift.” Amy looked down at Jared. “And Danielle? Will she come stay with us, too?”

  Mike said, “Yes. When everyone meets at the rendezvous point on Earth, we’ll take Danielle from Prienna and go to our new home.”

  Amy smiled bigger. “Until you just said that, having to abandon Teruvisa and go to Earth hasn’t sounded so nice. I’m glad we’ll all be together.”

  After a short ride on a mini shuttle, they took an elevator into a sublevel control booth. Jared recognized it right away. His parents dressed in the boots, belt, and helmet used for navigating the tunnels, and they were soon flying through the underground labyrinth of pipes.

  After a while, they stopped at a hatch blocking the tunnel. Mike took out a treyo, inserted it halfway into a slot in the middle of the door, placed his thumb on the device, and then removed it.

  Jared heard a click, and the hatch started spinning. After a few rotations, a hole appeared in the center. A bright light shined through the opening as it grew larger until the hole was as big around as the tunnel.

  They stepped out of the tunnel and into a stadium-sized room that housed an enormous cloud of light with brighter spots of light, some of which were moving, scattered throughout.

  There were also some not-so-bright spots that flowed and swirled in a seemingly random manner inside the light cloud. The light cloud seemed like some kind of nebula of energy to Jared.

  The cloud had to be at least a quarter mile long and 10 stories tall. Metal stairs and walkways gave access to different levels and areas of the cloud.

  Jared wondered what the cloud was used for and why it was there, deep under Teruvisa.

  Jared’s parents walked up to the light cloud, and a computer terminal appeared on the surface of it. Mike took a disc out from inside of his robe and inserted it into a slot in the console.

  A woman’s face appeared on the computer screen above the console. “Security clearance required for system deletion and shutdown.”

  Jared’s father took out his treyo. He pulled a black cable from the sleeve of his robe and plugged one end of the cord into his treyo. The other end, he plugged into a socket on the lower part of the console.

  “This should work, right?” Mike obviously felt some reluctance.

  “I hope so,” Amy responded.

  Mike began talking to himself. “Erasing the system files and shutting down should lock down Teruvisa, and the only way to get in should be through the gateway we established.”

  “It should. But, we’ll never know unless you enter those codes.”

  “Right.” Mike began doing something on his treyo. When he was finished, he unplugged both ends of the cable and fed it back into his sleeve. As he put away his treyo, he said, “Well, that’s it.”

  The woman on the screen said, “System deletion in progress. Complete system shutdown is imminent. Locking down.”

  Mike turned around and touched Amy’s shoulder. “Okay, we better hurry, or we won’t be able to get out.”

  Jared’s parents took off the gear they were wearing, except for the helmets.

  “Wait.” Mike held up a hand.

  “What is it?” Amy asked.

  “Shh. I thought I heard something.” Mike looked up and down the room.

  Amy whispered, “I don’t hear anything.”

  “Must’ve been my imagination... okay, this way.” Mike waved his hand for Amy to follow him.

  Amy picked Jared up, she and Mike started jogging along the outside of the light cloud, there was a flash, everything became a blur, and then they were standing in front of an iron door at the end of the room.

  Jared noticed that the door was hinged on all four sides. Big rivets formed an X on the door, all the way to the corners. In the center of the X, there was a small circular pad.

  When Mike placed his hand on the center pad, it glowed red. As he removed his hand and stepped back, the rivets started glowing red, too. Jared heard a searing noise, and the rivets started disappearing as if cutting torches were making an X-shaped gash.

  The door parted along the X, springing open like a blossoming flower. The hinges held the triangular sections of the door open.

  As they proceeded forward, Amy changed the way she was holding Jared so that he was looking back over her shoulder. After they passed through the iron door, it closed behind them and sealed itself back up.

  Suddenly, they started falling, and Amy turned Jared around to a sitting position on her lap. They were sliding down a silver tube. Amy’s head lamp shined on Mike, who was just ahead of them.

  The slide twisted and turned several times, spiraled, and then leveled off. They went shooting out into a narrow corridor and then started walking.

  Mike looked back over his shoulder and said to Amy, “It’s straight down this hall. We better...” With a surprised look on his face, Mike pointed at Amy and Jared and shouted something Jared didn’t understand.

  Jared and his mom were surrounded by light, and then there was a loud POP. Amy swung herself around. Someone had come out of the tubular slide and was pointing at them.

  Mike said something else unrecognizable by Jared, and the shield of light around Amy and Jared shot toward the unknown person following them. The black-robed pursuer was hit by the light, encased in a bubble, fell over, and curled up in a ball on the floor. Behind him, the opening of the tunnel slide closed up like the shutter of a camera.

  Jared’s father yelled, “Run!”

  As Amy turned around, she flung Jared up against her shoulder and followed Mike. Jared could see behind them again.

  As they were running down the hall, Jared noticed that the walls looked like volcanic rock—black, rough, and porous. After a few moments, the tunnel went dark behind them. The bubble that Mike had caught the robed stranger with must have burst.

  About a minute later, they stopped running, and Amy turned Jared around. They were at the end of the hallway, and in front of them was another iron door—identical to the last one they had gone through.

  Mike placed his hand momentarily on the sensor plate in the center of it and then stepped back. The door started to creak and moan as the red-hot rivets started cutting an X in the door.

  Mike pointed a hand in the direction of the door, and Amy did the same. Jared saw a thin cable shoot out of each of their sleeves and become anchored in the lava rock to the sides of the door.

  “Here goes nothing,” Jared’s father said as he glanced over his shoulder.

  Almost in unison, Jared’s parents said something in some foreign language. A bubble of light surrounded Jared and his mother, and another encased Mike.

  A split second later, the door burst open and a wave of water gushed in. Amy, white-knuckled, gripped the cable that tethered them to the wall. As the surge of water roared around the bubble protecting Jared and Amy, Jared realized it wasn’t really
water; it was raguam—the fire-water that surrounded Teruvisa.

  When the torrent finally calmed, they were completely submersed. The murky raguam all around them made it impossible for Jared to see his father’s bubble. There was no way for Jared to tell if Mike had been swept away by the raguam or not. Jared hoped his dad was okay.

  Jared’s mom said some strange, foreign words again, and the bubble they were in immediately started to propel itself through the raguam. Amy snapped her wrist and let go of the cable. The line was sucked out through the wall of the bubble without leaving a hole.

  After a short distance, the raguam started moving across the bubble’s surface in a way that it appeared as though they were going up. Jared found that his observation had been correct when the murkiness of the raguam lessened, and his and Amy’s bubble broke the surface of the raguam.

  Jared and his mom floated, bobbing up and down in their spherical buoy on the vast raguam ocean.

  Amy started looking around in all directions and seemed very concerned about something. That’s when Jared realized that Mike’s bubble of light hadn’t surfaced, yet.

  Did something happen to him? Jared was worried his father hadn’t made it out.

  Amy muttered, “Come on. Where are you?” She sounded desperate.

  Suddenly, a bubble broke the surface of the raguam not too far away. A wave of relief rushed over Jared.

  His mother sighed, “Amron.”

  Jared was confused as to why his mother had called his father Amron, but he was so glad to see that his father was still alive that he didn’t dwell on it.

  Using the bubble as a hamster ball, Amy turned and started walking across the raguam ocean. Mike, in his bubble, came up alongside of Jared and Amy.

  When they reached the shore, their spheres popped. At that instant, Jared’s mother pointed her hand at the swamp below their feet and said a strange word. A platform of solid ground appeared beneath their feet, surrounded on all sides by a bubbling marsh spitting fire into the air.

  As the fiery swamp started to ooze onto their earthen platform, Mike stepped closer to Amy and Jared. “Here. Let me take him.” He took his son from Amy.

  Next, pointing at the swamp again, Amy said some foreign words, and a dirt path appeared in front of them.

  Before it got covered by lava, she started running. Mike, still carrying Jared, was right behind her. Suddenly, they took off in a flash, like they were riding a lightning bolt.

  They crossed the marshland in a split second. After that, they traversed the white sand desert almost instantaneously. Then, they came to rest on a rocky embankment.

  The towering wall of Teruvisa was right in front of them. Mike and Amy climbed the slope and leaned against the wall.

  Jared looked out over the vast desert they had just crossed in the blink of an eye. Off in the distance, the marsh was barely distinguishable. He wondered how they had moved so quickly.

  Mike said, “Well, that was easy enough.” Jared noted the irony in his dad’s voice.

  Jared’s mother smiled and shook her head as she took out her treyo and, after doing something on the device, pointed north. “That way, funny man.”

  They stayed close to the wall as they walked a couple hundred feet over the rugged terrain of the lava rock.

  Amy stopped. “This is it.”

  Mike also stopped and then turned to face the white-sand desert. “Hilcar. We’re at the gateway now... okay. See you in a sec’.”

  He leapt off the hill. However, instead of landing on the fiery desert, he and Jared started careening through a worm hole of light.

  Unexpectedly, Jared and his father were jerked sideways, and then they lunged back the other way and began to tumble. A moment later, they rolled out onto the ground.

  The toddler Jared was lying on his side, crying. His father and mother were next to him.

  “Are we where I think we are?” Amy asked as she stood up.

  She brushed herself off, then stooped over and picked up Jared. As she comforted him, he stopped crying. She wiped the tears from his eyes and rubbed his cheeks with her thumb.

  Jared saw that they were in a jungle.

  “Yep.” Mike got to his feet. “I don’ know what went wrong, but let’s get out of here, quick.”

  As Mike began working on his treyo, he mumbled, “Come on. Where are you?”

  “How’s this possible?” Amy asked. “I’m sure I got the right gateway.”

  Jared looked around. The trees surrounding them were obscured slightly by a misty darkness. Also, the jungle was eerily silent.

  But, not long after Jared noticed that, a low voice broke the quiet. “Welcome.”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Jared saw someone grab Mike. A second later, a hooded figure appeared out of the dark fog in front of Amy and Jared.

  Amy gasped as the man stepped closer. “Dreggan.”

  Someone grabbed Amy, from behind, by the shoulders. Dreggan approached Amy and reached out.

  He grabbed the baby Jared, causing him to cry. Amy resisted, but Dreggan was able to pull Jared from his mother’s arms.

  “Let him go!” Amy shouted.

  “Silence her,” Dreggan commanded.

  Jared heard a whack, a squeak, a groan, and then a thud. At the edge of his peripheral vision, Jared could see his mother’s hair. She was lying on the ground, not moving.

  “Meya!” Mike yelled.

  Not only was Jared upset by the beating his mother received, but he was confused; a little while ago, his mom had called his dad Amron, and his dad had just called his mom Meya. Wait. Maybe people change their names when they become Masters. My parents must be Masters now.

  Dreggan held Jared, who was still crying and screaming for his mommy, out in front of him and backed away from Amy. Dreggan’s hood was hanging down over his eyes, shadowing his face, but that didn’t keep Jared from seeing Dreggan’s menacing grin as he held him closer. He waved his hand in front of Jared, and the crying instantly stopped.

  “Where are they?” Dreggan asked in a calm voice.

  Mike growled, “I’m not telling you anything!”

  Dreggan cradled Jared in one arm and pinched one of the child’s cheeks. “If I have to ask again, your precious little boy won’t have a mommy.”

  Dreggan snapped his fingers, and a large, robed man picked Amy up by the throat. Her feet dangled above the ground. She began to kick her legs wildly and clawed at the arm of the brutish attacker choking her.

  “Okay, I’ll tell you!” Mike cried. “Just put her down!”

  Dreggan’s thug dropped Amy, and she went crashing to the ground. She coughed and gasped for breath but otherwise seemed to be okay.

  “Well? I’m waiting.” Dreggan sounded very impatient.

  After a long pause, Mike exhaled loudly. “Why do you want them, anyway? There’s no way you can get into Teruvisa now.”

  Dreggan barked out a laugh. “Ha. Teruvisa? Obalin will become more powerful and glorious than Teruvisa ever was.”

  A thug escorted Amy, who had gotten back on her feet, to Mike’s side.

  Dreggan said through clenched teeth, “Now, tell me where they are.”

  Mike took a deep breath. “Right here.” He reached into his robe and then threw something down.

  Dreggan’s attention turned to the ground. Jared couldn’t see what he was looking at. Suddenly, there was a blinding flash of light, and a high-pitched squeal pierced the air.

  Dreggan wailed, “AAAAAH!”

  Jared was jerked from Dreggan’s arms, but he couldn’t see who was holding him—mostly because the baby Jared’s eyes were still trying to adjust after that bright flash.

  “KILL THEM!” Dreggan shouted.

  Mike called out, “Dad, get Jared to the rendezvous point! We’ll meet you there!”

  A few seconds later, as Jared’s sight started to clear up, he saw that Hilcar was holding him, and they were freefalling into the Divide. Hilcar wasn’t wearing a parachute, but they miraculous
ly started to slow down and glided to the bottom of the gorge.

  When Hilcar, still holding Jared, landed gently on the thin strip of shoreline between the raguam river and the canyon wall, without so much as a stumble, he took out his treyo and pointed it straight ahead. A disk of light appeared in the rock, and he stepped forward through it.

  Instantly, Hilcar was standing on the steep slope of a forested mountainside. The earth beneath Hilcar’s feet loosened, and small rocks tumbled down the hill. He grabbed onto a nearby boulder, heaved Jared onto it, and then climbed up next to him.

  Hilcar sat up and exhaled loudly. He looked around at the scenery and then at Jared.

  The older Jared was surprised that his younger self was being so calm and quiet. Whatever Dreggan had done to him when he waved his hand in his face had made the younger Jared speechless and passive.

  In contrast, the older Jared would have screamed out loud if he could. Although he understood that Hilcar was just trying to save him, Jared yearned for his grandpa to take him back to see his parents again; however, his rational side told him that he never would. He felt a deep sense of helplessness about the situation.

  “Well Jared, we better get going.” Hilcar picked Jared up, pulling his cloak around him and holding him tightly, and then sprang into the sky.

  In the blink of an eye, Hilcar and Jared were on a porch, facing a sliding glass door in the backyard of their house in Riverside, California. Hilcar opened the door and went inside.

  “Hello. Anyone here?”

  No answer.

  Hilcar glanced down at Jared and then walked over to the family room couch. “Well, Jared, let’s get you back to normal.”

  After placing him on the couch, Hilcar waved his hand in front of Jared’s face and said some words that Jared didn’t understand.

  Jared woke up from the HST. Ferran was standing above him.