“Master Sally,” George said, smiling.
Sally grinned through his thick, red beard. “It was harder ‘an findin’ a tick on a grizzly bear, but I did it.”
“Did what?” Rutger asked, shocked.
“I found dem kids a’yorn.”
Part
2
~
The Beast in the Glass
Chapter
15
~
Nice Mistress Jane
Frazier Gunn was worried about his boss.
As he walked up the winding stone staircase of Mistress Jane’s tower, enjoying the smell of burning pitch from the torches ensconced on the hard granite walls, he wondered which version of her would answer the door. The flickering, spitting flames cast haunted shadows that seemed alive, hiding and reappearing like dark wraiths. A team of seven servants maintained the torches throughout the Lemon Fortress, even though Jane probably could have lit the place using only her growing abilities in the mutated Chi’karda.
But she had her own way of doing things, and that was that.
Frazier felt a trickle of sweat slide down his right temple as he passed the halfway point. He’d been sick the last few days, unable to keep any food down, and he felt the effect of his illness now. He almost paused to rest, but his pride wouldn’t let him. He kept moving up the staircase, step by step.
His thoughts slid back to Jane’s recent mood swings—episodes of inexplicable kindness mixed in with the usual displays of anger and violence. He’d witnessed with his own eyes several of the bizarre occurrences. Just the other day, he’d almost swallowed his own tongue when he saw his boss help her servant Brainless clean up a broken dish Jane had slammed against the wall. The child’s face had paled during the incident, sure it was a trap, but when they finished, Jane apologized for losing her temper, dismissed her with a wave, and went back to work.
Frazier would’ve been less surprised to see a duck-billed platypus knock on his door and ask for tea.
Rumors of other surprising acts had spread through the castle like flames through a heat-wilted cornfield. Stories of kind words, apologies, thank-yous, compliments. Tales of Jane using her special powers to help servants lift heavy objects. It was crazy. Frazier had known this evil woman for years, and he couldn’t reconcile in his brain how it could be the same person. And yet, interspersed among these un-Jane-like anomalies, there were many moments where she exploded in rage, sometimes worse than ever before.
The whole thing was fishy, and in an odd way, Frazier longed for the days when Jane acted the tyrant every minute of every day. At least then he’d known what to expect.
He finally reached the top step, pausing to take three long breaths to calm his heart. He wiped the sweat from his face, not wanting Jane to see him so weak. After a very long minute, he finally crossed the stone landing and knocked on her wooden door.
It disappeared in a swipe from left to right, as if it had slid into the stone. It was only a trick, however, a manipulation of Chi’karda. Jane loved using her power for such trivial things, always opening her doors in creative and unexpected ways. One time she’d simply made it explode outward in a spray of dagger-like splinters, permanently scarring the poor sap delivering her mail.
Jane stood there, dressed in a simple yellow gown, her feet and hands bare. Her emerald eyes shone, almost glowing like green embers. Something was off, though. For a second, Frazier couldn’t figure out why she looked so odd, but then it hit him.
Jane had a layer of stubble growing across her head, tiny black sprouts of hair. Never—not once since he’d first met her so long ago—had Frazier ever seen so much as one hair on her head. She’d always insisted on baldness for some mysterious reason. Frazier balked and looked toward the floor, almost as if he’d caught her unawares coming out of the bath.
“Good morning, Mistress,” he said, keeping his eyes down. “I’ve come to report the latest on the Barrier Wand, and to, uh, report some interesting news.”
“Frazier, dear Frazier,” Jane said, her voice soft. “Please, come in.”
He looked up to see she had moved aside, gesturing toward her large, yellow velvet couch, beside which a fresh fire burned in the comforting hearth, its bricks freshly painted her favorite color. Clearing his throat, using every ounce of his will to avoid a single glance at her head, Frazier stepped past her and took a seat, sinking into the wonderfully comfortable cushions.
Mistress Jane sat next to him on his right, crossing her legs so that she faced him only a foot away. The fire reflected in her bright eyes, seeming to ignite them into some odd, molten metal. Frazier didn’t like this. No, he didn’t like this one bit.
“Frazier,” Jane said, reaching out to caress his arm, just once, before clasping her hands in her lap. “I know people are talking about me—about my . . . change.”
Frazier cleared his throat, faked a cough, hoping to buy time. He didn’t know how to respond to this. “Um, yes, Mistress, the servants have said some very . . . um, nice things about you. They are, of course, very grateful when you, uh, show them kindness.” He stopped; every word that came out of his mouth sounded worse than the one before it.
“Kindness?” she said with a disgusted tone, as if the word were a highly contagious disease. “That’s the best they can come up with? That’s how they honor my attempts to elevate my leadership skills?”
“Well,” he said, doing his best to speak clearly without stuttering. “No, I meant, well, I just meant they’re noticing your efforts, saying many different words—all very glowing words, actually. Your esteem has skyrocketed in their eyes. In, uh, mine, too.”
Jane folded her arms, glaring directly into Frazier’s eyes. “Do you think I’m stupid, Frazier?”
She’s going to kill me, he thought. Right now, after all these years, she’s going to kill me because she’s finally gone completely and totally insane.
“Stupid?” he repeated. “Of course I don’t think you’re stupid.”
Jane leaned over and whispered in his ear. “Then don’t speak to me like I’m stupid.”
She sat back, looking at the fire, her face expressionless. After several seconds, Frazier followed her gaze and caught his breath.
Several burning logs had floated up into the air and out of the main hearth, hovering above a rug made from the skin of a scallywag beast. Sparks and hot cinders fell from the logs, igniting several long hairs of the soft fur, which flared and died out quickly. A mess of white ash flew up from the fireplace, swirling around the flames in midair in fancy patterns, spelling words and making faces. Frazier felt a familiar icy fear in his gut, thinking of such power in the hands of a woman as unstable as Mistress Jane.
With a hiss and crackle, the whole show collapsed back into the fireplace; in seconds, it looked like the fire hadn’t been disturbed at all.
“Now,” Jane said, folding her arms and returning her focus to Frazier. “I know people are worried that my attempts to change are insincere. If anything, they seem more frightened of me than ever. Correct?”
Frazier nodded, not daring to say a word.
“This doesn’t bother me. Not in the least. I’ve been . . . unwise in some of my leadership methods. Perhaps even cruel. I know it will take time—a long time—to change.” Jane shifted in her seat, looking toward the window on the other side of the room, muted light from the cloudy day spilling through onto her bed. “All I ever wanted was to make things better, Frazier. That’s all I still want. If I need to adapt how I rule things, then so be it.”
She turned her neck, looking once again at Frazier, her eyes narrowed. “But we will take over the Realities. We will spread the goodness and power of the Chi’karda from the Thirteenth Reality to the others. And in the end, we will make the universe a better place for all. This, I promise you.”
Frazier nodded again, throwing all the sincerity he could into his expression. Jane’s words, filled with passion, had moved him greatly. He remembered why he had followed this wo
man for so many years, despite the constant danger. He remembered . . . and felt ashamed of the many times he’d hoped to topple her and take over.
“Mistress Jane,” he said. “I . . . I . . . I don’t know what to—”
“Say nothing,” she snapped, a sudden thunderclap shaking the room. It was a trick she performed often. “You’ve earned yourself back into my full graces. You’re my most loyal servant. You will be beside me, always. Nothing else needs to be said.”
A long pause followed, thoughts churning inside Frazier’s mind. How do I act now? What do I say? His fear of Jane hadn’t diminished in the least—if anything, it had grown stronger.
Thankfully, Jane got back to business. “You said you had an update on the Barrier Wand and some interesting news. Well, get on with—” She paused, forcing a smile. “Please, report.”
Frazier leaned forward, grunting as he pulled himself out of the soft cushions, and put his elbows on his knees. “They’ve found a place in a small mountain range about five hundred miles away—they’ve spotted signs of ore. It looks encouraging. The Diggers are hunting as we speak. As soon as they find a deposit, I’ll let you know.”
“Once they do,” Jane said, “we should need only two or three more weeks.”
“That’s right. The metal is the last thing we need to reconstruct the Wand.”
Something floated up from a shelf near the bed, flying through the air and landing with a thump in Jane’s outreached palm. She held it out for Frazier to see—a complex bundle of wires, pipework, gears, and nanochips—the Chi’karda Drive she’d removed from her previous Barrier Wand. The one Atticus Higginbottom had stolen.
“What’s the other news?” Jane asked.
Frazier shifted uncomfortably. His news was very strange, and he worried about her reaction. “Well, some of our hunters discovered an interesting . . . thing.” He paused, unsure how to proceed.
“A thing?” Jane repeated. “Your descriptive skills are less than apt, Frazier.”
“Sorry.” He rubbed his hands together. “I guess I’ll just say it how it is.”
“Brilliant idea.”
Frazier tried to laugh, but it came out as a snort. “Way out in the Forest of Plague, near the spot of the old battleground, they found a place where hundreds of trees have been cut down. Each stump is perfectly flat, as if the trees had been cut with a laser or something.”
Jane tilted her head, obviously intrigued. “Interesting. I can’t think of anyone . . .”
When she trailed off, looking at the fire, Frazier continued. “Right, no one in our Reality has that kind of technology. But, um, that’s not the weird part. Not even close.”
That caught Jane’s attention; her eyebrows rose.
“The trees . . .” Frazier said.
“Did someone take them? Did they burn them? That area has enormous trees—some taller than the fortress.”
Frazier shook his head. “I know, which makes the next part really bizarre. I couldn’t tell what had happened until I flew on the back of a fangen and looked down from above.”
“What do you mean?” Jane asked.
“Somehow, whoever cut those trees down . . . arranged them on the ground so they spelled out words.”
“Spelled out words?” Jane repeated. “With trees?”
“Yes. They formed letters out of the tree trunks. Really big trees that made really big words.” He laughed at himself but stopped abruptly.
“What did they say?” Jane asked, not smiling.
Frazier braced himself, knowing he had no choice but to repeat the mysterious message word for word.
“It said, ‘Mistress Jane, you are a coward. Come and find me.’”
Chapter
16
~
Tunnel of Glass
Tick slid his hand along the warm, hard glass of the big tube as he walked beside it in disbelief at the sheer height of the structure. It rose at least twenty feet above him, maybe more, and appeared to be a perfect cylinder. The bottom third was buried underneath the shifting sands of the desert. The glass was clear, but so thick he couldn’t tell what lay inside the big pipe; he could only see distorted images of varying color.
“Okay,” Paul said. “I’ve seen some strange stuff since hanging out with you two, but this might beat all.” He stepped back and spread his arms wide, looking up at the curved glass. “What could this thing possibly be?”
Sofia squatted on the ground, digging through the sand to see if the structure changed at all underneath. “Looks like it just keeps curving in a perfect circle. Maybe if we dug all the way to the bottom we’d figure something out.”
“Do I look like a shovel to you?” Paul asked.
“Well . . . actually, you kind of do,” Sofia said. “You look like a shovel with crooked ears.”
Tick ignored them, walking along with his hand pressed against the glass, hoping for some change or sign of what they were supposed to do next. Sweat soaked his clothes, the sun beating down on them as if trying to cook them for dinner. He could feel his skin beginning to burn—especially his neck. In all the chaos with the giant spider robot monster, he’d lost his scarf.
What is this thing? he thought as he studied the glass structure. Master George—if it really had been him—must have sent them here for a reason, and a clue or riddle must be hidden somewhere. He kept walking.
“Yo, where you going?” Paul called out.
Tick turned to look, surprised at how far he’d walked—at least a hundred feet. “I don’t know!” he yelled. “Trying to find a clue!”
He stopped, squinting to examine the endless tube as it stretched into the horizon, diminishing in a shimmering haze of heat in the distance. Nothing appeared to break the consistency of the smooth glass—no ladders, no doors, no connected buildings. He finally gave up and walked back to his friends, both of whom were digging in the sand.
“See anything?” he asked.
“No,” Sofia answered. She sat back on her heels, letting out a big sigh. “Seems like a perfect cylinder. A really big one.”
Before he could reply, a deep humming sound filled the air, a short burst lasting only a few seconds, but so loud it made the glass vibrate. Or maybe it was the other way around, Tick thought. Maybe the glass had shaken and made the sound.
Sofia and Paul jumped to their feet and moved next to Tick.
“Please tell me you guys heard that,” Paul said.
“Yeah,” Tick said, almost in a whisper. He thought he might’ve seen something from the corner of his eye—a slight movement in the glass to their left. “Something happened when it made that sound—I didn’t really get a good look.” He pointed to where he thought he’d seen the anomaly and walked closer; the others joined him.
“What do you mean?” Sofia asked.
“I don’t know. I thought I saw something move across the glass, a shadow inside or water pouring down it.”
Paul reached out and ran his hand along the curved wall. “Serious?”
“Yeah, positive.”
“Let’s wait to see if it happens again,” Sofia said.
Tick folded his arms, staring at the tube. No one said a word, silently hoping for a clue as to what they should do next.
A minute went by. Then another. Then several. A half-hour passed and nothing happened. Tick felt so uncomfortable from the sweat drenching his clothes and the sticky salt on his face and the burning in his skin and the sand in his shoes—
VRRMMMMM!
The sound boomed out again for five or six seconds, and this time, they all saw it. Right where Paul had touched earlier, a section of glass slid down, as if it were simply melting open, creating a rectangular hole the size of a typical door. Inside, filling the entire cylinder, something huge and dark zoomed past like a train, going at an incredible speed. Tick couldn’t see any details, scarcely believing that whatever it was could move at such a velocity.
The train thing was gone as soon as it had come, and the glass melted
upward, closing the door and reforming until not a single blemish or mark revealed it had ever been there.
“Whoa,” Paul said.
“This must be a tunnel for some kind of bullet train,” Sofia said. She gingerly reached out to where the doorway had appeared, then tapped the glass with her fingertip and pulled away. “It’s not any hotter than the rest of the tube.”
“We’re obviously supposed to go inside,” Tick said.
“And get smashed by that thing?” Paul said. “Wasn’t much room for a nice stroll in there if that train comes flying by again.”
Sofia turned toward the two of them so they stood in a small circle, facing each other. “Tick’s right. It can’t be a coincidence that we showed up here next to this big tunnel, right where a door opens up. We have to go inside.”
Paul shook his head. “Well, I’m not too keen on the idea of getting run over by a monster train. That door seems to open only every half-hour or so and it only stayed open a few seconds. Jumping in there sounds like the worst idea I’ve ever heard.”
“There has to be a path and a railing, right?” Tick said. “Even if it’s small. Any subway in the world has a walkway, doesn’t it? For people to make repairs and stuff?”
Paul shrugged. “Maybe, but it sure seemed to me like that thing was right next to the glass.”
“Yeah, it was,” Sofia agreed. “But what else are we going to do? Sit out here in the sun and bake to death? There’s no sign of anything for miles and miles except that stupid chair—I guess we could try sitting on it again, but—”
“We have to go in there,” Tick interrupted, nodding toward the tube, knowing he was right.
Paul held out his hands in surrender. “All right, all right, all right. Look, here’s what we’ll do. We sit here and wait for the door to open again. When it does, we’ll peek in and see what we see—all while making sure we don’t let anything slice our heads off or smash our faces in. Ya know, just for kicks. Like I’ve said before, we wouldn’t want to mess up this pretty face of mine or you know the ladies would be devastated.”