“He got here before you?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Wow. It shows you the energy fear can give you.”
“Yeah. He was lucky. He didn’t have a scratch on him. Paddy came a few minutes later. The fairies hit him a couple of times but that leprechaun is tougher than he looks. He helped us defend the place until you arrived and saved us.”
“I didn’t save you.” She sprayed his stomach with the disinfectant and he jerked. “Okay?”
“No problem.” He took a painful breath and added, “Sure you saved us. We saw what you did from up here. That took guts.”
“It took more magic than guts. How did you guys defend yourselves?”
“Rocks mostly.”
“Nothing else?”
“No.” He hesitated. “Sticks.”
“So you took the hit in the stomach here? I thought you got it back at the camp.”
“They hit me a few minutes before you got here. With me down, it was looking pretty scary. I didn’t think Paddy and Steve could hold out much longer.”
“How much supplies were you guys able to save?”
“None.”
Ali gasped. “What?”
“We don’t even have our water bottles.”
“The sleeping bags?”
“They caught fire with Paddy’s whiskey. I’m sorry, Ali.”
“Don’t be sorry, it’s not your fault.” She paused, thinking frantically. “Can we make it to the top without supplies?”
“You saved my backpack. We have the crampons, the rope, and the ice axes. Sure, we can go a day without food. Water’s the problem. You need tons of it to hike at this altitude.”
“What about the river?” she asked.
“We’ll leave it behind after a few more hours of hiking.”
“There’s snow higher up. We can melt it for water.”
“We need fire to melt snow.”
She thought of the fire stones, told him about them.
He nodded. “That might work. But we won’t have anything to get down with. No food, no sleeping bags, no cell phones.” He gestured to his ruined coat. “Nothing.”
“Do you want to turn back?”
“Do you?” he asked.
Again, she thought of Ted. “I can’t. I have a responsibility.”
“To see this through to the bitter end?”
“I know that sounds dramatic, but yes, I have to see it through. The tree told me that I was the only one who can do it. And I believe him.”
“The tree was a him?”
“You know what I mean, Karl. But none of that applies to you guys. You’re hurt. You should go back.”
He stared at her a long time. “You’ve changed in the last few days.”
“You mean, the powers I’ve gained?”
“It goes deeper than that. You’re like a different person.”
She smiled. “Better or worse?”
“You scared those creatures tonight. I told you, I was watching from up here. You scared me, Ali.”
She lost her smile. She saw that he was serious. Another friend that looked at her funny. Here she had thought how cool it would be to have magical powers. The price of her abilities was adding up quick. She could end up even more lonely than before.
“More reason you should go back,” she said.
He shook his head. “I think it’s a reason to stay.”
“Why?”
“Because I think you’re going to be on the winning side.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The others were still resting when Ali stood and hiked from the stone ledge of Overhang and down into the trees. The clouds had cleared. In the east a faint light had begun to appear, and Venus shone like a hard diamond against the black-blue sky. The cold, crisp air was too invigorating to sleep in—at least to Ali, but then again she had a lot on her mind.
In her hands she carried the fire stones. They were not hot.
She did not know how she stumbled across the pond. Suddenly it was just there, at her feet, and she decided it was as a good place as any to sit and think. Kneeling near the water, she was pleased to see how clear and still it was—an almost perfect mirror of the sky. If anything, Venus looked brighter in the pond. The light of the planet flickered over the icy surface like the gleam in an angel’s eye.
“The planet of love,” she said to herself.
Ali picked up the fire stones and casually rubbed them together.
A red bolt of energy erupted and stabbed the pond.
A gusher of steam exploded into the air.
“Ouch!”
“What?” Ali gasped. Did someone say ouch? The bolt had shocked her silly, but not as much as the miraculous way the water settled back down. Why, within seconds it was as calm as when she had walked up to the pond.
“How is that possible?” she whispered.
A voice spoke in her mind.
“I have a little magic of my own.”
“Nemi!” she squealed.
“Hello, Alosha.”
She clapped her hands together. “This is great! This is just what I needed!” Quickly, she closed her eyes so that she could hear him better.
“To shoot me with your fire stones?” he asked.
“Don’t be silly. Nemi, I thought you were dead!”
“You mean, you thought I was a tree?”
“No. Yes!” She added, “I don’t know who you are. You never told me.”
“Why worry about me? You don’t know who you are.”
“Ah. Is that a test question?”
“As a matter of fact it is. That is the seventh test.”
“Why don’t you just give me the answer and save us both a lot of trouble?”
“That would be no fun. You will find out. But first you must conquer air, space, and time.”
“So I have a hurricane to look forward to? Or will it be a tornado? We don’t get too many of those in the Northwest.”
“Air is a mysterious element. Consider what is carried through the air—the greatest of all human inventions.”
“I don’t understand,” Ali said.
“That is why it is called a test.” Nemi added, “The tests don’t have to be in order. You might solve one before the other.” Nemi added, “You just have to stay alive.”
“How can you be so encouraging and so dark at the same time?”
“It is the way I am.”
She had to smile. Yet the smile did not remain.
“I have so many things on my mind,” she admitted.
“That means the test of air is around the corner.” Nemi added, “What troubles you?”
“Lots of stuff. The gang almost got wiped out last night. The dark fairies could come back at any time. We have no food or water. Everything feels like it’s falling apart.” She shook her head. “I feel like I was the wrong person to trust with such an important mission.”
“Aren’t you being too hard on yourself? You have done well so far, considering the obstacles. You are still alive, that is a miracle in itself.” Nemi paused. “Something else troubles you.”
“Yes.”
“You feel something is wrong that you’re not seeing.”
“Yes. How do you know?”
“I am a smart tree. Or a smart pile of ash, however the case may be.”
“Would you stop that!” She quieted. “Why do I feel this way, Nemi?”
“Do you want me to take your test for you?”
“Sure. Take them all. They’re too hard.”
“You joke. You know I can’t do that. But you have learned to trust your feelings. There must be something important that you are missing. It could be right in front of your face.”
“And that’s the test of air?”
“It might be,” Nemi said.
“I don’t know why I like you so much. You sound like a New Age psychic.”
“You are the one who’s talking to a pond.”
“You’re so frustrating!”
r /> “Imagine how I feel about you.”
She paused. “I guess I must look pretty stupid to you.”
“You are not stupid at all. You are close to passing a very hard test.”
“What if I don’t pass it?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“I will die? Will my friends die, too?”
“Some things I cannot say.”
Again, she wanted to ask about her mother. But she knew she should change the subject. Nemi did not want to talk about death—he was telling her as much.
“Do you know Lord Vak and Lord Balar?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Are they evil?”
“Is the president of your country evil? Lord Vak and Lord Balar have their own interests. Sometimes that blinds them to the interests of others.”
“Is there another reason besides the pollution that they are attacking the human race? I know you said before that it was a secret, but I need to know.”
“You do not need to know the answer to that question to find the Yanti and close it. But it is true, later you will need to know.”
“Can I trust Paddy and Farble?”
“You decide.”
“No! Tell me!”
“Trust yourself. Remember, I am not your master and you are not my slave. You must make your own choices.”
“Why are you here then?” she asked, feeling overwhelmed.
“I miss you,” he said.
Three simple words. They touched her so deeply.
“I’ve missed you, Nemi. Promise me you won’t go away again.”
“I told you, I am always around.” He added, “What else troubles you?”
“The dark fairies. Were they always so evil?”
“No.”
“What happened?”
“They made poor choices. They wanted power more than anything else.”
“They seem to know me.”
“Why do you say that?”
“They reacted quickly when I was trying to steal their fire stones, and at the same time they seemed afraid of me.”
“An astute observation. They know you well.”
“How?”
“You will see.”
“Am I more powerful than they are?”
“Power cannot be put on a scale and measured. Sometimes the greater a person’s power, the weaker they are.”
“Are you talking about me? I’ve been worried about that. My friends have started to treat me different. I don’t want to lose them.”
“Don’t lose them.”
“But how?”
“Be wise. Wisdom is a great power. It is the first thing the dark fairies lost long ago.”
“They are disgusting, but there is something that scares me even more. And I haven’t even met it.” Ali paused. “What is the Shaktra?”
Nemi sounded surprised. “Where did you hear about that?”
“I dreamed about it. What is it?”
There was a forever pause.
“Something very painful. Something very personal.”
“Nemi,” she began. But he interrupted.
“You do not want to know what it is, and you will not know for some time. Your task, at present, is the Yanti. Focus on that.”
She wanted to pressure him for more information, but feared what she might hear. “I will,” she promised.
Nemi’s tone was gentle in her mind. “It is time for you to go back to your friends.”
Ali felt so much peace in his company, and so much pain at the thought of leaving. “Can I talk to you again before I reach the Yanti?” she asked.
“Not in this way, Alosha. But I told you, I am always near.”
Ali stood. Nemi said he was not her master. He probably would not like her bowing to the pond. She touched the water instead, raised the finger to her lips. It was almost as if she could taste the sweetness of his personality in the cold liquid.
“Don’t go too far,” she whispered.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
They got an early start. With no breakfast to eat, no showers to take, there was nothing for the gang to do but wake up and get going. They didn’t even have to shoulder their backpacks. Karl’s pack was the only one left and he insisted on carrying it, his burnt stomach notwithstanding. He said his wound felt much better.
“Now it only hurts when I breathe,” he told Ali.
Cindy was hurting from her burn but refused to complain. She could be tough when it counted. Ali was proud of her, proud of them all. No one even talked about turning around.
They resumed their hike up the mountain, always up, even before the sun rose. But now they were starting a half mile west of Treeline Path, and Karl said there was no point in heading back to the trail.
“It doesn’t go to the top,” he explained as they stopped for a quick breather. “It cuts far east, circles the mountain, and then starts down again. It comes out somewhere on the backside of Pete’s Peak, I’m not sure where.”
“Do we follow the river for now?” Ali asked.
“Yes. As long as we stay near it we’ll have water. But it doesn’t go to the top, either, of course. We’ll have to leave it when we reach the snow line.”
The snow was near, a thousand feet above. Already they were approaching the treeline. The pines and firs had thinned since yesterday.
Pete’s Peak stood above like an ice sculpture carved by an ancient race of giants. Up close the peak was daunting, the sides so sheer Ali could not imagine scaling them. But by the day’s end they would have to be near the top, and by two in the morning they had to reach the summit.
“What’s our elevation now?” Ali asked.
Karl glanced at the map. “Ten thousand feet. That’s an important height. Above it breathing becomes much harder.”
“You’re depressing me,” Steve said.
“We have to know what we’re facing,” Karl said.
“I don’t know about that,” Steve disagreed.
They started again, the river on their left, a hundred feet below. It was not as wide as it had been at lower altitudes, but it still packed a punch. Ali would have hated for any of them to fall in the water. She figured the current would sweep them all the way to the falls before there would be a chance to get out.
Without a path to follow, the way was rough. They kept running into clumps of trees and steep rocks; they were constantly backtracking. However, they made surprising progress before the sun came up.
Then they had a major problem.
As the first rays of the morning sun licked over the woods, Farble ran behind a tree and cowered. Paddy, who showed no love for their new traveling companion, shook his head in disgust.
“What else can you expect from a troll?” Paddy said. The leprechaun was in poor shape himself. Besides missing his hat, his green bow tie was in tatters and the back of his coat was burned.
“The sun is hardening his skin?” Ali asked, concerned.
“Aye. Troll skin burns then hardens,” Paddy said. “Best we leave him behind, Missy. Never know what a troll will do. Before we left this morning he pawed Paddy and told me he was hungry.”
“He’s not going to eat you,” Ali said impatiently.
“Leprechauns are a delicacy for trolls. The moment you turn your back, he’ll try to put poor Paddy in his stomach.”
“Paddy sounds like he knows what he’s talking about,” Steve said.
“I think we need Farble,” Ali said, watching the troll tremble behind the tree. She felt a pang of sympathy; here Farble was threatened by fire again.
“We need him like we need a dark fairy to laser off our warts,” Steve said.
“He’ll only do more harm than good,” Paddy agreed. “Leave him be, Missy.”
“Karl!” Ali called. As always, Karl was a few steps ahead. “Do you still have that umbrella in your pack? And that sunscreen?”
“We need that sunscreen for our faces,” Cindy complained. “I don’t want to get burned and ge
t wrinkles and look old.”
“How old are you?” Paddy asked.
“Thirteen,” Cindy said.
Paddy shook his head in amazement. “You’re but an egg, lassie.”
Ali got the umbrella and sunscreen from Karl and walked over to the troll. So far Farble had avoided any direct contact with the sun’s rays, but it was only a matter of time before he was caught out of the shade.
She knew it would be an even worse problem for him once they were above the treeline. Of course they would all be exposed up on the slope. Anyone could see them, from miles away. The thought continued to haunt her.
“Farble,” she said softly. “Are you okay?”
He shook his head. “Scared.”
She came closer, touched his thick arm. He needed a bath before she could even think of putting on the sunscreen. She showed him the lotion, however, and opened the umbrella to demonstrate how it could shield him from the sun.
“This lotion can stop the sun from hurting your skin,” she explained. “And the umbrella will keep the sun off your face and shoulders. But what I need you to do first is take a bath.”
His big head wobbled. “Bath?”
“Yes, a bath. You need to wash off this mud so the sunscreen can work. Go down to the river, sit in it a few minutes up to your neck, then shake off and come back here. Hurry, we don’t have much time.”
Farble nodded and lumbered down to the river, limping all the way. His leg must still be hurting, she thought, feeling a pang of guilt. She turned and waved to the others. She could tell they were talking about her.
Farble was back in a few minutes. Most of the dirt had washed away, and he smelled a whole lot fresher. He knew how to shake off better than a dog. Already his skin was pretty dry. He sat patiently in the shade while she rubbed the lotion on his gray hide. Even sitting, his head was taller than her’s.
“Farble, I need to talk to you about something,” she said as she worked the sunscreen into his arms. He appeared to enjoy the massage; she doubted he had ever got one before. She was glad the lotion was rated a full fifty. The label said it would block the sun completely.
On humans, she thought. No doubt his hairy hide would make it less effective.
It was interesting to study his body up close. He did indeed have plenty of hair; it was not just flaky mud. The fibers were thick but surprisingly soft. His skin, also, was much smoother than she would have imagined. Yet it was the muscles under his skin that fascinated her. Because they felt as if they were all one piece, solid, hard to separate. As if he were a tree trunk rather than a breathing animal.