I fought off sleep and tried to keep up an animated conversation with Kishan, but during the long evening, cradled in Kishan’s arms, I actually nodded off and quickly came to understand the Phoenix’s warning. As my eyes fluttered closed, something dark sucked at my consciousness. My head became heavy, and I could actually feel the flow of blood in my veins slow to a stop.
Alarmed, I tried to rouse myself but couldn’t. It was as if I was back with Sunrise and the topaz-colored egg, teetering on the edge of a cliff and had just lost my footing.
I drifted into another vision of Lokesh. My mind seemed to lock with his, and I knew he sought information about another piece of the amulet from a poor servant.
The man, who had been beaten severely, held out a fistful of crumpled papers and mumbled, “According to the records, two great warriors, Chandragupta and Seleucus, frequently met in battle prior to 305 BCE but then mysteriously, all war ceased, and they signed a peace treaty. Seleucus, who served under Alexander the Great, presented his daughter to the emperor to take as his wife, and the emperor sent him five hundred battle elephants in return. Seleucus took over his East Asian territories after the emperor died.”
“Continue,” Lokesh said to the frightened man after kicking him viciously. I felt Lokesh’s delight in the abuse, and I recoiled in horror.
The servant read Lokesh a letter. “Seleucus had offered Chandragupta lands that bordered the Indus River in exchange for goods and soldiers. Chandragupta replied, ‘I will consider your offer if you will agree to level the mountain that blocks the view from my palace. You have the power, after all.’”
“Stop!” Lokesh ordered and demanded to see the letters. When the servant handed them over, Lokesh used his magic, and wind swirled around him. Blue lightning crackled at his fingertips and shot into the unsuspecting man, who fell to the floor. Black lightning marks streaked his chest.
The vision shifted, and I was once again with Lokesh in a strange land. “You were hard to find, old man,” Lokesh smiled at the aged grandfather he had cornered in a hut. “Fortunately for me your ancestor Seleucus had a birthmark that was passed down to his sons and grandsons.”
Lokesh laughed derisively, “Do you know that Seleucus’s mother told him his real flather was the god Apollo and that his anchor-shaped birthmark was the sign of his favor?”
The frightened man shook his head.
“Seleucus thought he was destined for great things. Perhaps he was in his own small way.” Bending over the elderly man, Lokesh continued, “Between you and me, a great man makes himself great. Sadly, your chance to become great has long since passed. Perhaps you’d like to know how long I have been searching for you.”
Pulling a knife from his belt, a knife I recognized, Lokesh tested it with his thumb. “Five hundred years,” he said, “And that’s a long time. Even for me.”
The false smile Lokesh wore faded. “But, rest assured, I will punish you for every year I’ve had to wait. Incidentally, the last two years were the most interesting of my search. I traced Apama, the wife of Seleucus, to her Persian hometown of Susa. Then, several months and many deaths led me to you. They all wanted to protect you—their ancient grandfather who claimed to be one hundred and twelve years old.”
Lokesh leaned forward and narrowed his eyes. “But between you and me, my friend, I believe that you are much, much older.”
The old man’s eyes gave him away. In a flash, he used the power of his amulet to shake the ground, but he was as feeble as he appeared. Lokesh froze the old man’s entire body in an instant and with his earthquake still rumbling; the man’s body slid from the chair and broke apart into scattered pieces.
Lokesh shoved aside the old man’s remains and pulled the amulet from his neck. Then he picked up a ring that had rolled away from the shattered hand. It had a smooth oval gem encased in a thick gold, molded edging. The stone’s flat blue surface had a marbled appearance that made it look slightly like a weathered map. Lokesh rubbed the Persian turquoise stone and slid it over the knuckle of his thumb.
Frowning, Lokesh kicked aside what was left of the old man’s body and mumbled, “I need to learn how to better control the water piece. They die entirely too quickly.”
He joined the new piece of the amulet to the others, and I felt the rush of power. The amulet invigorated Lokesh, and somehow I knew he’d found the earth piece. I watched as he tested its range and the scope of its power. With the old man’s piece of the amulet, Lokesh was able to bring precious gems to the surface, shift rock, and cause tremors. Together with his other two pieces of the Damon Amulet, Lokesh could call forth predators of the earth and sea to do his bidding.
The sharks! That was how he called them. It was also how he was able to use the bear, wolves, and snow leopards to distract Mr. Kadam during the swordfight.
Satisfied only momentarily with his new power, Lokesh set his sights on India and the remaining two pieces of the amulet.
My body jerked, and I snapped awake to find I was lying in the tunnel with my head pillowed on Kishan’s backpack. My connection to Lokesh was indeed getting stronger. It was becoming harder to remain at a distance, and I shook with revulsion at the thought.
Kishan leaned over me and asked, “Another dream?”
I nodded. My cheek stung, and I rubbed the tingling skin. The tips of my fingers were gray and had no feeling. “What happened?” I asked.
With a strange expression, Ren answered, “You fell asleep. We couldn’t wake you. I’m sorry, Kells.”
“Sorry for what?”
“I had to slap you to get you to wake up.”
“Oh. Don’t worry about it,” I said as I caressed my slightly numb cheek. “It barely hurts.”
“That’s what worries me. Can you move your legs?”
“Of course I can.”
I tried but nothing happened. Grabbing Ren’s arm, I painfully pulled my body into a sitting position and looked at my legs. The skin was gray. I poked my calf and found the muscle hard, almost like stone.
“What’s happening to me?” I whispered desperately.
Ren took my hand and massaged my fingers gently. “Your face was gray too but it’s starting to return to normal color. We just need to get your blood moving.”
My fingers began to turn pink, but the tips stung as if they’d been stuck with thousands of hot needles. I whimpered despite my attempt to tough out the pain, and my eyes stung with tears. Kishan pulled off my socks and began rubbing my feet. It wasn’t long until I felt burning prickles shoot through my feet and legs.
“It hurts!” I exclaimed.
Ren pressed a kiss on my forehead and wiped away a tear. “We need to do it, Kells. Can you stand it for a little while longer?”
I nodded and he worked on the other leg while Kishan focused on my toes. The fingertips on both of my hands ached, but the sharp pain was gone. After a half hour, Kishan announced that my legs were no longer gray and offered his arm to support me standing up. I did and hobbled around, feeling shooting pains travel up my legs.
Leaning heavily on Kishan, I continued down the path, grateful for my painful blisters that ensured I would stay awake. Ren asked me to tell him all about my dream and kept me talking until my muscles screamed in protest from the constant walking.
I was dead tired. A new body, combined with sleeping in a nest and almost burning to death, had exhausted me. I felt like a walking zombie, and all I could think of was my soft bed back home at Ren’s house. Every footstep I took seemed to repeatedly whisper, “Bed, bed, bed.” It was late into the night, or perhaps early morning, when Ren suggested we take a short break and taste the firefruit.
Kishan produced a knife and cut into the layers of leathery skin. The fruit separated into two halves. A thick red rind surrounded the soft, reddish-orange flesh. Like a kiwi, the fragile interior was filled with black seeds. Kishan handed me a wedge, and I bit into the juicy fruit.
It had a slightly sour but refreshing tang. The seeds were crunchy but ed
ible and had a nutty flavor. The fruit had the texture of a soft grainy fig but the flavor was like a burst of watermelon and grapefruit combined. As I reached for another piece, I felt heat on the back of my tongue as if I had eaten something mildly spicy.
When we finished eating the fruit and began walking on through the cavern, I felt invigorated, suddenly realizing the pain was gone. I inspected my heels and murmured with awe, “I’m better! The firefruit healed my feet!”
Ren and Kishan felt recharged as well and decided I needed to constantly munch on firefruit as we walked. Instead of eating the messy and sticky fruit, I created a gourd filled with firefruit juice and sipped it whenever my feet started to hurt. We came to a fork in the tunnel and while Ren took Fanindra and explored ahead a short ways, I stopped to rest with Kishan. He leaned against the tunnel wall, and closed his eyes.
I was talking to Kishan while rummaging through the bag when Ren returned. Immediately, he ran to his brother and shook him. I spun around and gasped. In the few short moments I’d had my back turned, Kishan had fallen asleep. His face had turned gray and his body slumped against the ground as if he were dead.
We shouted and Ren even slapped him twice, but Kishan wouldn’t awaken. The gray color visibly crept from his fingertips up his forearms and inched from his face down to his neck. I worried that if it reached his heart he wouldn’t be able to recover. As Ren tried to shake him awake, I doused him with water, but the life-giving liquid, though safe to us, was poisonous in the fire realm. It hissed on the rocks and ate through several large stones like acid.
I lifted my gourd of firefruit juice to his lips and though most of it trickled down his neck, he stirred slightly. I gave him more and soon he was able to swallow. The gray began to retreat, and finally Kishan blinked open his golden eyes.
I kissed his still stony lips and admonished softly, “Don’t scare me like that.”
He tried to speak, but I pressed my finger against his lips. “Don’t talk yet. Just drink.”
Two bottles of firefruit juice later, he seemed to be fully recovered and stood up, but Ren still draped Kishan’s arm around his shoulder and helped him walk off the numbness. I winced when Kishan grunted in pain, completely empathizing with the terrible sting he felt. Soon we were on our way again, headed down the tunnel Ren and Fanindra had chosen.
Kishan regained his strength, and, as the tunnel narrowed, he took the lead, followed by Ren and then me.
After helping me over a large rock blocking our path, Ren said, “I want to ask you something, but if it makes you uncomfortable, you don’t have to talk about it.”
“What’s your question?”
“When you sacrificed yourself to the Phoenix, we saw you burn.”
“Yes,” I answered softly.
“What happened?”
“The Phoenix asked me some questions that I had a hard time answering, and the burning was the result. There were some things I needed to learn, to admit to myself. Sunset said that my heart called out to it when we entered the forest. It . . . it wanted to heal me.”
“Its methods of healing leave something to be desired.”
“Perhaps.” We walked in silence for a moment and then I added, “The Phoenix didn’t ask more of me than it expected from itself though.”
“What do you mean?”
“When the night comet streaked across the sky, I watched it burn. Sunset gave its life so the new Phoenix, Sunrise, could be born.”
Ren’s eyes fixed on me briefly, and then he looked away. Gently, he inquired, “What did he ask you, Kelsey?”
I let out a soft sigh and walked beside him quietly for a few seconds. He didn’t press me while I considered how much to share with him.
Finally, I responded, “My heart has been hurting for a long time, and I’ve clung to the pain. The Phoenix made me face that. And now that I’ve recognized it, I’m trying to figure out my next steps. As for the questions he asked me . . .” I stopped walking and reached for his hand. “I want to keep that to myself for a while. I promise that I will tell you about it someday. Just not right now.”
Ren lifted my hand to his lips and pressed a soft kiss on my fingers. “Then I’ll just have to wait for someday.”
Six hours later the tunnel widened, and my golden snake suddenly came alive. Fanindra brushed her head against my cheek and squeezed my upper arm with her coils, an unnerving sensation I still hadn’t gotten used to. She peered into the darkness ahead of us and flicked her tongue in and out several times. When she angled her head toward the ground, I crouched down and set her onto the gritty black path.
Lifting her head, Fanindra opened her hood and swayed back and forth as she studied the terrain ahead. Then she hissed slightly and moved off in a different direction. We followed her across a rugged trail that was covered with sharp black stones. Her golden body wove between the rocks, and though we lost speed, we all agreed it was safer to follow the snake.
Soon we felt a change in our surroundings. The tunnel opened into a large cavern. Echoes of our voices bounced around us. As we progressed farther forward, I felt a cold wind brush against me and then disappear abruptly. Goose bumps fanned out on my arms, and I rubbed them anxiously.
The movement of cold air was strange enough in the fire world, but it was also accompanied by several unnerving noises. The current of air twisted through holes in the rocks, creating a soft rattling, or fluttering, noise, and the rocks slowly strangulated with dull gasping sounds. The wind continued to brush against my new skin with long intervals in between, and I conjured up the image of a dying colossus exhaling his last cold breath.
Fanindra stopped abruptly and lifted her head, sensing something we couldn’t. Not even Ren or Kishan could hear or see far beyond the light cast by the golden cobra. All of us sensed danger. Ren responded by unhooking the sword from his belt. As he grasped the hilt, it lengthened into its full span. With a twist of his wrist, the sword separated into two blades. He handed one to Kishan and by unspoken agreement, both brothers moved slightly ahead of me.
After an hour of this slow movement, I felt the energy drain from my body again. I’d just uncorked the stopper to take a sip of the firefruit juice when Fanindra suddenly coiled and elevated almost the entire upper half of her body. She spread the ribs below her head wider than she ever had before, which showed off the elaborate coloring of her hood and made her look three times larger than she was.
She spat a loud series of hisses in warning, either for us or to try and scare off whatever was frightening her. Her mouth opened and closed several times as if tasting the wind. Her forked tongue tickled the air over and over, waving vertically like a loose ribbon in the breeze as she tried to get a sense of her surroundings.
A pop on our left, like that of a rock falling, echoed through the cavern, startling us. Not a moment later, we heard the quick skittering sound of something being dragged across rocks. It continued to move, circling closer, and the noise reminded me of a child carelessly dragging a heavy toy down stairs. The rhythmic thumps fell in sequence on the landscape, and I felt like something evil was tapping a jittery rhythm down my spine. My vertebrae pinged in sequence with the noise.
Kishan tensed. “Do you smell that?”
“Smell what?” I whispered.
Grimly, Ren nodded. “The stench of death.”
Ren reached behind him and took my hand. He nestled me between his strong back and Kishan’s. That’s when the smell hit me. I gagged immediately, and my eyes began watering. A vapor of decay encircled us, and I had to cover my mouth and nose with my hand. Ren’s nostrils flared, but that was the only sign that either brother was uncomfortable.
The smell was worse than a ripe garbage dump. A dead animal would be a pleasant perfume compared to it. It was almost tangible. I could even taste the stench on my tongue and feel it permeate my clothing and my hair. It was a smoldering, caustic, corruption—a sticky, biting tang that was somehow both toxic and sickly sweet at the same time.
&nb
sp; The thumping noise came closer and suddenly stopped. The thick air made my eyes sting from the gassy vinegar smell. Fanindra’s body waved briefly and then she struck at something in the darkness. She hissed and struck again. I peered into the blackness ahead of her and felt Kishan tense.
A ghostly gray shape shuffled slowly toward us. The hairs on my body stood on end as I realized it was a corpse. The body moved stiffly. The belly was grotesquely distended, and the mouth gaped open slackly. Where there should have been gums was the white jaw of a skeleton. I shuddered when I saw that the skin around the rotting flesh was bloated around the face and was blackened, as if bruised.
Hair hung limply from what remained of the scalp, and I quivered and moved closer to Kishan’s back as the creature scratched its forehead, and the scalp slipped, exposing part of its white skull.
Ren spoke first. “What are you? What do you want from us?”
The creature hesitated briefly but began moving toward us again. It seemed fascinated with Fanindra. The snake struck at the creature several times, but it was either unaffected by the poison of her bites or couldn’t feel them. When it reached down to take hold of her, she quickly slithered out of its grasp and wound back toward me, wrapping around my leg.
I picked Fanindra up, and she immediately coiled into her jeweled armband shape. Placing her on my arm, I noticed the walking corpse straighten its body and move toward us. Its rheumy white eyes were fixed on Fanindra and me.
Ren raised his sword. “Stop! If you continue to approach, we’ll injure you.”
The walking corpse didn’t even look at him. Ren raised his sword and hacked violently at the creature, slicing cleanly through its right arm. The moldering limb fell to the ground but the lifeless being was only slightly hindered by the lost appendage as the arm slid away from its body. It obviously felt no pain.
Kishan leapt forward then and drew his blade across the corpse’s distended belly, splitting open its midsection with a liquid pop. Biting fumes and a thick liquid gushed out. The smell of putrefaction and raw sewage eddied through the air, and as I raised my hand to blast it with lightning power, the corpse clamped its hand on my wrist.