From the Mouth of Elijah
Volume 2 in the Children of the Bard® series
Copyright © 2012 by Bryan Davis
Published by Scrub Jay Journeys
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ELIJAH’S FIRE
Deception lives disguised in smiles
From nobles, preachers, kings;
Disease in words, deception’s snare
In choir robes it sings.
The cause, the cure, they come as twins
In voluntary breaths;
For one a theft, from one a gift,
Both suffocating deaths.
Will fires burn the sacrifice
To spread a cooling breeze?
Will death defeat another death
For those on bended knees?
And so the valiant march to war
Without a sword in hand;
Their weapon rests in silent sighs.
A prayer their only stand.
When sacrificed in blistered wind,
The cure is scattered yon.
Our faithful servants rise again;
Their night has reached its dawn.
And now they march with swords of light
To rescue from the mire,
Corralling misled lambs with love,
Rebuking wolves with fire.
Strip off your scarlet-tainted robes;
To truth forever kneel.
The cure must start with sharpened blades
To cut, then stitch and heal.
O God of truth, O Lord of fire,
Come purge polluted lands.
We plead for healing flames of truth;
We grasp your bleeding hands.
Chapter 1
MOUNT ELIJAH
Matt sprawled in the mud next to Walter. Five armed prison guards surrounded him, one with a rifle pointed at his head. The other four shifted their aims wildly at dragons orbiting outside an encircling firestorm. Flames crackled. Steam billowed. Dragons and men screamed.
Walter belly crawled through the mire, whispering, “Get ready. I’m calling for backup through the tooth transmitter.”
“Go for it.” Matt looked for Lauren. In the center of the circle, she stood on top of a tank alongside Joran and Selah as they tried to create a protective sound barrier around themselves using Joran’s lyre. Another tank sat behind the first, abandoned.
“Makaidos!” Walter barked. “Give us some firepower.”
“Gladly.” A stream of orange shot from Makaidos and slammed into one of the surrounding soldiers. As flames engulfed his body, a volley of fireballs sizzled in. Two other soldiers dove out of the way and splashed into the mud.
“Matt! Now!” Walter leaped to his feet and punched a soldier in the jaw, sending him flying backwards. Matt swept a leg under the last standing guard. He toppled, slammed his head against the empty tank, and fell limply over Matt’s legs.
While Walter ran toward the tank, Matt rolled the unconscious guard to the side and snatched up his rifle. Dripping muddy water, he stood in the hot quagmire and tried to orient himself while voices buzzed in his tooth.
“Thanks for waiting,” Walter said. “Let’s do it!”
“Matt didn’t come. He doesn’t know the barrier’s ready.”
Matt blinked. Lauren’s voice, but it was warped and fuzzy. He shook his head, slinging away muddy water and clearing his ears.
“Matt!” Walter called. “Did you hear Lauren? We’re all set! Get up here!”
“On my way.” Matt leaped toward the tank, but his foot snagged on something. He fell forward and slid through the muck.
A gun pressed against his head. “Don’t move,” a soldier called toward the tank, “or I’ll put a bullet through him!”
Walter’s voice returned to Matt’s jaw. “Keep holding it, Lauren. It might be Matt’s ticket back up here.”
Atop the tank, Lauren raised her arm. A rope dangled from her wrist. “I don’t think I could untie it if I wanted to.”
Matt followed the rope from Lauren’s wrist to his waist. They were still attached. The knot was too tight. This could be trouble.
“I will take him from here,” a woman hissed. Something jerked upward on Matt’s collar and hauled him to his feet. A dagger pressed against his throat. The woman called out, her arm wrapped tightly around his waist and her mouth next to his ear. “Give me Lauren. If you do, she and hero boy will both live. If you don’t, I will kill him immediately.”
Matt tensed. Semiramis! He couldn’t let this witch wannabe use him as bait to catch Lauren. “Wrap them in the barrier!” he shouted to Walter. “Don’t trust a word she says!”
The rear tank submerged into the liquefying mud, creating a vacuum wind that sucked the surrounding men into a dark void where the tank once sat. The swirling suction pulled Matt and Semiramis toward the hole, but the rope tightened and kept them from falling in. As the ground dissolved all around, Semiramis hung on to Matt’s waist, the dagger still at his throat, and shouted toward Walter and Lauren. “What is your answer?”
Walter made a twirling motion with his finger. “Joran, wrap Lauren and Selah and yourself up.”
“We can’t leave Matt!” Lauren pulled the rope, but the vacuum held him in its grip. “I won’t leave Matt!”
Like a powerful broom, the wind swept men, mud, and guns into the growing void, leaving only one tank, its riders, and Matt and Semiramis hovering inches over melting soil.
With violent flames spinning all around, Walter shouted at Lauren. “Do what I say! Now! I’ll hang on to the rope.”
“But—”
“No buts.” Walter turned to Joran. “I’m counting on you to save Lauren and Selah. Like I said, wrap them and yourself in your barrier.”
Joran responded, but the wind batted his words away.
“Of course not. I’m going to try to save Matt.” Walter looked again at Semiramis. “Ease up on that dagger, and we’ll talk. In the meantime, I’m going to protect the kids.”
Still atop the tank, Joran held a rod in the air and began walking around Lauren. Then he and Selah crouched with her, as if inside an invisible tent.
Walter grasped the rope with both hands and leaned back against the pull. “Why should I believe you’d let them live?”
“I have information to trade. I know Arramos’s plans. It will prove that I am not in league with him and that I will not harm Matt or Lauren.”
“Arramos? What are his plans?”
“Promise to give me Lauren, and I will tell you.”
Matt shouted, “Don’t do it! I’m not about to let anyone put Lauren in danger.”
“You heard him,” Walter said.
“Don’t take me for a fool. They are minors, children of your best friend. The decision is yours, not Matt’s.”
Walter grimaced against the rope’s pull. “There must be a reason you want Lauren so badly. I can’t believe you’re going to let yourself plunge into an un
known world.”
“I know what I’m doing. You have five seconds to decide.” As the blade cut into Matt’s throat, Semiramis spoke softly into his ear. “Give me Lauren, and I will help you save both Earth and Second Eden.”
He growled, “I wouldn’t trade her safety for your promises to save any world.” Trying not to move a muscle, he whispered into the transmitter. “Lauren, the rope’s still tied to my waist. You and Walter can reel me in. Don’t worry about Semiramis cutting me. I’ve been trained to handle this. Just do something that’ll distract her for a split second.”
Lauren jumped up and shouted, “Semiramis!”
Semiramis flinched. Matt shoved her arm back, grabbed her dagger, and thrust an elbow into her ribs. The vacuum ripped her away.
Still clutching the dagger, Matt continued hanging by the rope in midair, the wind batting him around. Lauren and Walter pulled at the rope’s opposite end, their faces taut.
“It’s slipping!” Walter called. “Hang on!”
Lauren leaned back, slowly sinking with the tank. “I am!”
Gasping for breath, Matt groped for something to grab, anything he could brace with to keep the pressure off Walter and Lauren. In seconds, everyone on the tank would be swallowed by the bubbling lava. They still had time to protect themselves in the barrier, but not if they kept trying to save him.
Matt waved both arms. “Let me go! Save yourselves!”
The tank eased lower. Hot gasses shot up from the melting metal. Her face twisting in pain, Lauren shouted, “Never! If you go, I’m going with you!”
Matt gazed at her. Such determination. Such love. She really would give her life to save him.
He glanced at the knot. The last time he dangled from a rope, a hate-filled foster sister stood at the other end, a prankster who wanted him to suffer. Lauren was the opposite of Darcy. She was light and love, everything a real sister ought to be. He couldn’t let her die.
He set the dagger against the rope and whispered into the transmitter. “I love you, Lauren. It was great being your brother, even for just a little while.”
He sliced through the rope. With a twang, the line snapped toward Lauren. Matt flew away and sailed through the air. With the dagger still in his grip, he forced his arms not to flail. He hurtled nearly parallel to an expanse of black rocks that lay a hundred feet below. Plumes of steam erupted from fissures, some rocketing high and brushing scalding white fingers against his skin. Crashing down there would either tear his body to pieces or boil his blood, maybe both.
A huge lake came into view, the shore not far away. His arms instinctively flapped, as if swimming toward the water. When his momentum eased, his angle bent toward the steaming rocks. Only seconds remained to impact.
With his chest toward the ground, he locked his arms against his sides, closed his eyes, and held his breath. He skidded across water for a split second, then plunged into its depths. Pain shot through his head—ripping, throbbing torture, like a full-body vise crushing his skull. Water gushed into his mouth. He swallowed to keep it from leaking into his lungs. It tasted earthy, yet fresh.
Once his descent stopped, he opened his eyes. Dark water filled his vision, hot and stinging. Which way was up? It seemed impossible to tell.
While he slid the dagger safely behind his belt, he let out a bubble and watched it rise. With a two-armed flap and a vicious kick, he swam in that direction. The pressure eased, but his lungs ached for air. The water grew brighter, still scalding.
Soon, the surface appeared, blocked by floating horizontal cylinders that allowed light through undulating gaps. He pushed into a gap and broke through in the midst of a sea of floating logs, a hazy, moonlit sky above. He sucked in a deep breath. The air scraped his throat and burned his lungs. He coughed violently, but each draw of new air made it worse. Still hacking, he stripped off his jacket and held it over his nose and mouth while treading water with one arm. Now the spasms brought in cleaner air, though it was still tinged with a bitter bite.
He grabbed a log, then snapped his hand back. Sparks rose from the stripped bark, apparently a recent burn victim. He set his hand in the water to cool the sting. No real damage—probably just a bit red. Maybe he had hit one of these logs when he entered, explaining the head and body aches.
As his breathing slowed, he searched for the shoreline, but darkness and smoke veiled the view in every direction. A curtain of ash floated from the sky like dirty snow, adding to the haze. Was it dark during the battle at the prison? Every memory fogged, possibly a sign of a concussion. With his limbs aching, he wouldn’t be able to tread water for much longer, and the fumes would do him in sooner or later. They were already causing dizziness.
He chose a log that had been completely stripped of all branches, slid his hand underneath, and turned it. As it rotated, it hissed, and vapor rose from the newly cooled sections. When the hissing stopped, he repeated the process with another stripped log, then another. After cooling five logs, he pushed them side by side, threw his jacket over them with the sleeves spread out, and hoisted himself on board, quickly hugging them together.
Bobbing with the logs, he grabbed a jacket sleeve, tossed it over his face, and hugged the logs again. As he breathed through the filter, he closed his eyes. Making plans now would be a lot easier—fewer worries about drowning. Obviously he was no longer anywhere near the prison, so yelling for help made no sense, and it would make things worse if the wrong people heard him.
The improvised raft’s up-and-down drift added to the dizziness. It might be better to rest for a while longer until the feeling went away. Taking slow breaths through the sleeve, he let his body relax. Soon, an image came to mind, Lauren sitting in the copilot’s seat of an airplane, the very same place he had sat when flying with Walter not long ago, though now their father was the pilot. The two were talking—garbled words, too warped to figure out, something about underborns, magnetic ore, and Apollo, but most of the conversation died in the buzz of the propeller.
After a while, Matt blinked his eyes open. Still bobbing, he pushed his face out from under his jacket. The sky was brighter now and the fumes less dense. A haze-coated sun hovered fairly close to the horizon, giving evidence that morning had broken not long ago. Sleep had helped. The dizziness had gone away.
Turning carefully, he searched for the shore across the log-cluttered lake. About a hundred yards away, the greenish-blue water met a field of dark ground where steam spewed in bursts from invisible holes. Beyond them, a volcano sent billowing clouds of gray into the sky, dotted with sparkling embers. From the volcano’s decapitated top, lava oozed down every visible side, some of it hardening before it reached the bottom of the slope, as if trying to rebuild what the eruption had blown away.
He looked in the opposite direction. No sign of shore that way, just a sea of water, logs, and smoke.
Keeping the jacket over his mouth and an arm on one of the logs, Matt let himself into the water and paddled and kicked toward shore. As he progressed, the water grew hotter and hotter, likely affected by the superheated lava field. Soon it might be too hot to go on, but staying in the lake meant sure death. He couldn’t swim forever.
After several minutes, he found traction on the lake bottom and trudged toward shore. Just a few steps ahead, a woman lay on her back in shallow water with her face barely above the surface. A coat of ash had covered her torso, making her look scorched, perhaps dead. Dressed in a camouflage uniform, she had to be Semiramis.
Matt sloshed to her and dropped to his knees at her side. Semiramis was breathing, but the fumes would probably finish her off soon.
He let his shoulders sag. Rescuing her might be stupid, but how could he leave a woman to die? It would be heartless. Besides, she might have some idea about where they were and how to escape. With the water seemingly ready to boil, too much time here would make them both part of this lava stew.
Holding his breath, he dropped the jacket and stripped off his shirt, le
aving only a thin black T-shirt. After wiping away some of the ash from Semiramis’s lips and eyelids, he laid the outer shirt over her mouth and nose. She coughed and shook her head, but Matt kept the wet filter in place.
“Stay calm. I’m trying to save your life.” He set the jacket over his mouth again, muffling his words. “Not that you deserve it.”
“Help me …” Opening her eyes, she held the shirt over her mouth. “Help me sit.”
Matt set a hand behind her back and pushed her to a sitting position. She coughed several times, sucking air between coughs.
While he waited, blood trickled from his dagger wound down to his chest. Pain blurred his vision. The entire world spun one way, then another, as if riding on a yoyo. His danger alarm simmered in his stomach, like a stewing pot on low heat. Maybe it was just the volcano … and maybe not.
Matt climbed to his feet and stood in calf-deep water, fighting to keep his balance. He panted through the jacket. Smoke veiled the area, a gray shroud that spun in the swirling air. Cooling breezes cut through his saturated clothes, but his dragon-endowed body heat pushed back the chill.
As the mind fog dissolved, the scene clarified. Between his vantage point and the volcano lay an expanse of lava rock, bare and steaming. Far to the right within the expanse, fallen trees stripped of all greenery lay in burning heaps, some covered with boulders. It seemed that the volcano had blown its top and sent a storm of stones in every direction, knocking down trees before sending a cascade of lava to burn them.
The volcano continued spewing smoke and ash, and the breeze stirred the drizzling gray flakes into tighter swirls, making the lava field look like a postapocalyptic movie set. What was this place? A Pacific-rim island? That seemed impossible. Just moments ago he battled prison guards in Arizona.
He set a finger on his jaw and listened. No chatter from Lauren, Walter, or anyone else. He ran his tongue across the tooth transmitter. It was still there. Maybe the impact and hot water ruined it, or else he had flown too far, but weren’t the transmitters supposed to work from miles and miles away?