“What’s happening?” Leven hollered.
“You’re changing,” Geth shouted back. “Offings grow by experience, not time!”
Leven looked away from his hands and spotted the riders up ahead. They were kicking dirt up as they sped over the top of a tall hill and down toward the valley before the gorge. Leven didn’t have time to trail behind them. Winter was in trouble.
“Come on,” Leven yelled at his ride. “We can’t let them beat you.”
He found that onicks have a rather competitive spirit. His onick suddenly accelerated. He had picked one fast lizard.
Leven counted the riders in front of him.
There were nine.
Leven raced up alongside the last one in line and steered his ride into the side of the thundering beast. The unexpected bump unseated the rider, who went flying. The rider came down hard, bounced twice, then landed on his feet, sprinting after Leven.
“Looks like we’ve got a runner!” Clover screamed.
Leven looked back.
“He’s huge,” Leven said. “He’s twice my size.”
“Well, then you’ll have to hit him twice as hard,” Geth observed. “Think of Winter and remember who you are!”
Leven’s arms burned red.
The runner could barely match the speed of Leven’s onick, but as he got close he reached out and grabbed a handful of Leven’s shirt, trying to pull Leven off or pull himself up onto the racing onick. Before he could do either, Leven flexed, elbowing the runner in the jaw. The runner’s teeth popped out like popcorn. He lost his grip and dropped to the ground, wounded and out of the chase.
Leven wiped his forehead as his chest and torso began to burn and swell like his arms. The swelling wasn’t painful, and it seemed to give him strength. He thumped his heels against the sides of his ride.
“Come on!” he commanded.
His onick responded. Under Leven’s urging, it raced in behind the next victim, and with a swing of its head it was able to send the rider tumbling off into the dirt.
Leven’s right foot burned as images of his life in Reality began to crowd his head. He could see Addy and Terry and all the misery they had put him through. He could feel those experiences making him stronger now.
“Get ’em!” Leven shouted to his onick.
The beast surged ahead and easily toppled the next rider with its head.
Leven’s onick would have gotten a third rider if the cloaked being hadn’t turned and spotted them. This rider was big and had a square face with one terrific eyebrow and twice that many moles. He looked at Leven with an expression of surprise. Then he opened his mouth and blew out a terrific blast of flame.
Leven could feel the fire licking at his own eyebrows and part of his torn shirt. The heat also entered Leven’s nose and throat, but it only stoked the burning in his chest and caused his body to grow stronger.
The fire-breathing rider leaned back and blew flame at Leven’s onick. The speeding lizard veered to avoid the blast, and Leven lost hold for a moment but gripped the onick with his heels. He regained his seat and urged his ride forward. As it pulled ahead of the fire-breathing rider, Leven’s onick flicked its tail, catching the fire-breather by surprise and causing him to do a rather spectacular flip into the air before slamming into the ground far behind them.
“Wow!” Clover said, impressed.
“I didn’t expect the fire,” Leven admitted.
“Tell me about it,” Clover said, a small tuft of hair above his eyes smoldering.
“Are you okay?” Leven asked as his onick thundered closer to those still ahead of them.
“Fine,” Clover lied, his leathery forehead dripping with sweat. “It’s you I’m worried about.”
“Me?”
“You’re changing,” Clover said with awe. “Look at your hands and your shoulders. I’ve never seen it happen so fast or so strong. Something big must be coming.”
Leven tried to look at himself the best he could. He could see his hands and his feet; more important, he could feel the change.
“Worry about that later,” Geth directed. “We have five more riders to take care of.”
Leven dug his heels into the lizard, and the onick’s tongue shot out. Leven jabbed with his heels again, and once more the beast’s orange tongue leapt from its mouth and then recoiled. The onick’s tongue was at least four feet long and moved with lightning speed. It was bumpy and coated with thick, sticky-looking mucus.
The tongue gave Leven an idea. He moved in behind the next rider and dug his heels into his ride. His onick’s sticky tongue shot out and wrapped around the left wrist of the rider in front. As the tongue retracted, it pulled the rider off. Leven watched the poor nit land on the side of the path and tumble down a steep incline.
Leven rubbed his lizard behind the ear. It turned and tried to bite him. Apparently his ride wasn’t doing this for him. As Leven was rubbing the onick he noticed that his hand, while not burning red any longer, now looked larger than it had only moments before.
“Yeah, yeah, nice hands—now stop admiring yourself and get those other riders,” Clover yelled out from on top of Leven’s head.
Leven’s cheeks burned red for a different reason as he sped up to the next rider and watched his onick use his tongue to pull the rider off. The rider was momentarily suspended in the grip of the tongue, and he glared at Leven. He had a blue face with red lines running horizontally across it, like a bloody barcode. Leven blinked, and the rider was gone.
Leven looked around nervously. His head felt foggy, as if he were in a dream.
“Where did he go?” Leven yelled.
“He’s still there,” Geth hollered.
Leven looked and was surprised to see a miniature version of the same rider there on the tip of his onick’s tongue. He looked like a small action figure. Before the onick could retract its tongue, the small rider ran along the bumpy surface and jumped onto the onick’s head, where he stood glaring at Leven defiantly.
“Let me handle this one,” Clover said, jumping onto the head of the onick and grabbing the miniature rider in his hands.
The rider returned to his normal size, and Clover found himself holding onto the rider’s ankle. The rider kicked his leg, sending Clover into the air behind Leven just as the onick tossed its head, sending the rider careening to the corklike soil.
“Clover!” Leven yelled as his onick raced on.
“Right here,” Clover responded, scrambling up the onick’s tail as they continued to fly across the ground.
Leven’s heart was racing as his entire body seemed to enlarge. He sped up alongside the next victim. The rider looked at Leven in shock; he had been blissfully unaware of anything going on behind him. He waved his hand, and Leven’s body began to lift off the onick. Leven grasped the shoulder blades of his onick in a desperate attempt to stay on.
“What’s happening?” Leven panicked.
“He’s levitating you,” Geth answered.
Leven’s still-burning feet were pointing straight up in the air, making him look as if he were doing a handstand on the shoulder of the onick. The rider caused Leven to sway from side to side, trying to force him to release his grip on the onick. Leven’s fingers were burning again as he dug into the skin of the beast. The onick didn’t really appreciate that. It twisted and bucked, whipping Leven’s legs into the rider who was levitating him.
Before the rider could react, Leven’s onick followed up the kick by flicking out its tail, catching the rider just under his chin.
The levitator flew farther than any of the other victims Leven had knocked off previously, landing with a dull thud in a field thick with temperamental holes.
There were only two riders left in front of them, and they were rapidly nearing Fissure Gorge, still at breakneck speed.
Leven could feel his legs growing longer, not by inches and feet but by centimeters. The white strip in his hair glowed like a lit bulb. Once again he could see scenes and bits from his life
in Reality. He could see Terry and Addy screaming at him and telling him that he would never be what he wanted to be because that was impossible. Resentment burned inside of Leven, like a gasoline-marinated lump of coal that had just touched a lighted match.
Leven also saw his neighbors who had ignored him and his peers who had made fun of him, and he felt nothing but pity for them. He wished they could see how their behavior had contributed to making him who he was. Leven’s entire body burned as if on fire.
Leven let the feeling wash over him as he raced closer to the gorge. He began trying to think up compliments he could yell at the bridge.
Leven’s onick moved up and bit the tail of the onick in front of him. It didn’t do any damage, but it did cause the rider to turn and spot Leven. Instead of turning to fight, however, the riders ahead picked up speed, racing even faster toward the gorge. Leven was concerned: They seemed off course for meeting up with the bridge. In fact, they were heading straight for the wall that bordered the edge of the gorge.
Leven tried to turn the head of his onick, but the lizard wouldn’t have it, going after the two in front of it with its tongue.
“Whoa!” Leven yelled. “Turn!”
The giant lizard wasn’t listening, and the wall bordering the edge of the gorge was rapidly drawing near. The two onicks in front of Leven ran faster, showing no signs of slowing. Leven tried his best to concentrate to manipulate the outcome, but all he could get his eyes to do was burn gold while his soul rose up into his throat.
The riders in front of him reached the wall and, without slowing, their onicks leapt over it and out of sight.
“Stop!” Leven screamed at his own ride. He thought about jumping off, but it was too late.
His lizard reached the wall and sprang over it and out into the void above the gorge. Leven allowed himself to scream as he held tightly to his doomed ride. With his eyes closed, he heard the wind whistling against something. He opened his eyes to see wide, dark, leather wings extending out of each side of the onick. The beast had suddenly slowed and was drifting down, still following the two in front of it, which were also moving in what felt like slow motion.
Clover materialized. “Don’t let go!” he screamed, his voice strangely loud in the sudden quiet. He was holding tightly onto Leven’s arm and staring down into the depths of the gorge.
“I wasn’t planning to!” Leven said, also speaking needlessly loudly in the now-quiet air.
The onick he was on was swimming slowly through the air toward the two in front of it, its giant wings acting as fins. The two onicks split, one drifting up and one gliding down. Leven’s lizard aimed for the high one. It floated up and circled slowly, using its sticky tongue to send the other onick into a slow roll. It unseated the rider, who flailed about with his arms as he floated down.
Leven watched as the rider slowly descended through the air, down into the gorge. Halfway down, he hit hard air and began to drift in a different direction, becoming trapped in the maze of air. Leven held on even tighter to his ride, not wanting to experience the same fate.
Out of nowhere, lightning ripped through the air, illuminating the gorge like a violent bug zapper. The strike missed Leven by a few feet, but his onick screeched and used its wings to swim higher. The rider Leven had just unseated apparently had the gift of lightning, and though trapped in the maze of air, he began firing bolts as he drifted up, then down, then sideways.
The ribbon of lava at the bottom of Fissure Gorge belched, and a warm wind wafted up, lifting Leven’s onick and its passengers even higher and scattering the new lightning that was now shimmering continuously. The uneven air in the gorge caused the jagged bolts to sizzle in all directions.
From below, the only remaining rider ascended toward Leven, urging his onick up. The two lizards screamed at each other as Leven tried to maneuver his out of the way.
He couldn’t completely avoid the beast, and as it passed Leven’s ride, there was a terrible ripping noise followed by a hideous scream—his onick had lost its tail. It turned in the air to face its assailant, crying like a wounded bird.
The last rider made a slow, wide turn and came back directly at Leven. As the two onicks collided, they thrust out their tongues and grabbed hold of one another, slowly twisting in the air, like two alligators wrestling.
Neither onick would let go of the other’s tongue, and the struggle made it almost impossible for their wings to get the air they needed underneath them. They were all drifting down, surrounded by shimmering lightning.
Wide-eyed, and clinging desperately to the back of his enraged onick, Leven watched as Clover swam through the air and onto the head of the last rider. Clover pushed back the hood of the rider’s cloak, grabbed a huge handful of his hair, and pulled on it as though he were a farmer trying to harvest the world’s most stubborn beet. The rider’s eyes watered as he frantically reached up, causing his onick to twist and lose more air.
The rider grabbed Clover by the throat and squeezed as hard as he could. Clover’s eyes bulged as he tore at the rider’s hands. Leven didn’t think about how useless it was for the rider to try to kill Clover; he just reacted.
The rider was large, with a huge frame and thick, black hair. If it had been weeks before and Leven had been in Reality, he wouldn’t even have dreamed of confronting someone like that. But it was not weeks before, and Leven was mounted on a winged lizard, floating miles above the ground, with burning fists, watching someone hurting Clover.
Leven drew back his right hand and swung. The air parted to allow his fist to travel the distance to the rider’s jaw. A terrific crack sounded, and the rider twisted sideways and floated off his lizard. The poor beast released its tongue and descended belly up toward the bottom of the gorge, desperately struggling to get some air beneath its flailing wings.
“Not bad,” Geth remarked.
Released from the rider’s grip, Clover caught an updraft and drifted up. Leven pulled up on the head of his onick and urged him toward Clover. Leven’s onick swam through the air beautifully, and Leven blinked, suddenly realizing that he could see the soft outline of the different layers of air. He navigated in and through them as he made his way steadily toward Clover. Lightning continued to lick at everything—at the walls of the gorge, the clouds, and at the air around Leven.
Leven dodged a thick bolt. He swooped gracefully beneath Clover and reached out his hand, surprised to see Clover smiling widely, his cheeks glowing. As the onick continued to rise, Clover took Leven’s hand and swung onto the onick right behind him.
The ribbon of lava at the bottom of the gorge belched once more.
Leven and Clover were lifted up as a thick scratch of lightning flashed next to them.
“You’re not done yet,” Geth warned.
“What?”
“That last one may be onick-less, but he’s flying after us.”
Leven dug his knees into his lizard as the last member of the Ring flew through the void toward them. He grasped Leven and turned him, wrapping his arms around Leven’s burning chest. The being was incredibly strong, and he was squeezing the air from Leven’s lungs, forcing his life out.
“You fool,” he hissed into Leven’s ear. “You have damaged the Ring.”
Leven couldn’t respond due to his lack of breath and his impending doom.
The last rider gasped in sudden realization. He wrenched Leven’s head around and stared fiercely into his eyes.
“You are Leven,” he seethed. “I’ve found Leven.”
Leven would have asked his name—but again, the dying thing.
“You can die,” the hooded assailant hissed joyfully. He tightened his hold, bleeding every last drop of breath from Leven’s lungs.
Leven willed his gift to kick in, but there was nothing, and his vision began to go black as lightning continued to flash everywhere.
“Not so fast,” Geth ordered.
Geth was out of Leven’s shirt pocket and standing on the rider’s arm that was wrapped aro
und Leven’s neck.
“What?” the rider cursed. “What . . . who are you?”
“I can’t believe you’ve forgotten me, Sam,” Geth said boldly.
“Geth?” Sam said in disbelief. “Geth?”
Sam released his grip on Leven just a bit, and Leven gasped for air, realizing that he could now see the maze of air in the gorge almost perfectly. His offing eyes were completely adjusting to Foo. In fact, Leven’s amazing eyes could read the air so well that he could see a solution to the brute holding him. Leven lightly nudged the onick he was on with his right heel. The beast drifted over and down as Sam turned his attention to the bold little toothpick.
“The great Geth,” Sam laughed. “We’ve been searching everywhere for you, and now I see you are too insignificant to be a concern.”
“The least bit of good can put a hole in a mountain of evil,” Geth said wisely.
Sam laughed, having no idea how literally Geth was speaking. Geth leaped up and came down as hard as he could with his legs pointed. Geth pierced Sam’s forearm, causing Sam to yell and momentarily release his hold on Leven. Geth pulled himself from out of Sam’s arm and grabbed hold of the white in Leven’s hair.
Leven knew it was now or never. He kicked his onick in the ribs and it bucked, propelling Sam straight up into a strong current of air. Leven then navigated the onick through the clear patches, swimming through air and crashing lightning toward the top of the gorge.
“He can still fly,” Clover pointed out as they were rising.
“If he can work his way out of the air,” Leven replied.
Leven had propelled Sam into a thick, complicated maze of air. Clover looked back to see Sam flailing about in slow motion, desperately trying to find his way out of a maze he couldn’t see.
“Brilliant,” Geth said. “He could be stuck in that air for years.”
“I couldn’t have done it without you,” Leven said.
Clover cleared his throat.
“And you, of course,” Leven added.
“Could you see the air?” Geth asked in disbelief.
Leven nodded.