The Ascension Read online

  That brought a moment of silence from the others. It was Jack who spoke.

  “If I’d known that at the start, I might not have gone. I’m not exactly cut out for fighting. We nearly got kil ed there a couple of times.”

  Gem was about to comment that now he seemed to be very wel -built for fighting, but she didn’t have a chance, because Sparks spoke first.

  “What was the second thing he told you, Gem?”

  Gem winced at the fact that he had caught that. She knew that she couldn’t hold it back though.

  Not if she wanted the others to trust her.

  “He said… he said that the picture was of Princess Chelsea and himself, and that I was his daughter. Like I said, I have spent the summer ruling there, trying to make things work.” She got the words out in a rush. They fel into the waiting silence. It continued as the others thought about the implications of what they had just been told. Final y, Kat grinned.

  “Talk about spending your summers abroad.”

  “So,” Gem asked, “wil you help?”

  “What sort of obstacles would there be in Myriad,” Rio asked, “and what could we use to protect ourselves?”

  “Incisive questions, Mr. Roberts,” Dr. Brown said. “The truth is…there is only so much I can tel you. There seem to be few mortals on Myriad.

  Instead, the world is inhabited by the creatures that we would think of as Fey, or Fairies, along with other fantastic creatures. Someone ful y human there might wel be thought of as little more than a snack.”

  “Which is why you cal ed for me rather than going yourself,” Gem guessed. “After al , I’m half Anachronian.” Dr. Brown nodded. “Wil ruler words work there? I would like to think that there is something we can do to defend ourselves.”

  “They might,” Dr. Brown replied. “I don’t know for certain. There are definitely links between our world, Myriad, and Anachronia. Henry was investigating those links when he vanished though, so we don’t know the ful extent of them.”

  “Could those links have something to do with that disappearance?” Jack asked.

  “Possibly. Again, I don’t know. What I do know, however, is this…” he fished a cue out from under the pool table. “As people visit worlds like Myriad, it seems to draw them closer together.” He brushed the zigzag of bal s on the table into a rough line.

  “How would we get there?” she asked.

  “What about the pods?” Jack suggested. Dr.

  Brown shook his head.

  “Strictly speaking, they are superfluous here. Getting to Myriad seems to be more about your state of mind than the technology. Henry even had the theory that you can only enter the place if you are somehow meant to be there. Knowing that it is there helps, of course. I suppose the pods might be useful in eliminating distractions.”

  He left it at that. Gem found herself watching the others. They al seemed stunned, but then, they had a right to be after everything they had just been told.

  “They should have some time to think about it,” she suggested. “After al , this has probably been a shock.” It certainly had been to her. To her relief, Dr. Brown agreed, saying that he would go and check assorted parts of the computer set up, and would be back in a little while.

  The others seemed to let out a col ective breath as the scientist left. Sparks leaned back in his chair.

  “Wel , that explains why you didn’t keep in touch over the summer.”

  “I’ve been a bit busy,” Gem pointed out.

  Sparks smiled.

  “I’m not criticizing. Anyways, it also explains some of the weird stuff that has been happening.”

  “Like what?” Gem asked.

  Sparks looked around them, as though he wasn’t sure he should be saying anything. It wasn’t like him, Gem thought, to be indecisive.

  “For the last few weeks,” he said at last,

  “there has been some guy fol owing me around, dressed in this real y garish costume, like some sort of jester’s outfit. A couple of times, I tried to confront him, but it was like he… flew off or something. Al I found was this weird dust, like he’d been…

  sprinkling it round as he went. I know it must sound insane.”

  “Just a little,” Kat interjected. “Are you sure it wasn’t a dream? I’ve been having this weird one, with this wizened old woman, leaning on a stick, only her fingers are pure ice.”

  “Ice isn’t that bad,” Jack put in. “If you live with it long enough, you get inured. Back home in Alaska, I hardly notice the cold now.” And of course there was his sudden growth spurt. Gem added it to a mental list before turning to Rio. This close to him, she could see that he had a day’s worth of dark stubble covering his swarthy good looks. It only added to the sense of danger he seemed to carry everywhere with him.

  “What about you, Rio? Have you been having weird things happen to you?”

  “What? No, nothing like that.”

  There was something about the way he said it that made Gem feel almost certain that there was something, but she knew better than to pry. Trying to get an answer out of him would only make Rio more taciturn than he already was. Gem drummed her fingers on the edge of her chair.

  “Look, everyone, I know this is al a lot to take in, but we’l have to decide if we’re going. I am.

  Whatever I feel about Henry Word, I… I owe it to him to at least try, especial y if what Dr. Brown said is true.”

  Sparks nodded.

  “In that case, I’m going too. Maybe I’l even find an answer or two.”

  Rio nodded as wel .

  “If you’re in, Gem, I’m in.”

  “Me too,” Jack said. Gem noticed the way he looked at her as he did so. Kat looked around al of the boys and snorted.

  “You do realize that you’re al pathetic, diving into danger just because you fancy Gem?” she chided, ignoring the chorus of objections that fol owed. Gem noticed though that Kat’s eyes lingered on Rio before she gave her own answer.

  “Al right, I’l do it. Just don’t go blaming me if we al get kil ed.”

  Gem went and found Dr. Brown, who seemed delighted at the news.

  delighted at the news.

  “Your sleeping pods are exactly where they were, of course. Please, we should hurry before anything can happen to Henry.”

  He led the way through the castle, and Gem could feel the sense of expectation coming from the others as they headed for their rooms. Sparks paused with her in the hal way outside them, waiting for the others to head inside. He kissed her then, deeply, and Gem found herself kissing him back.

  They only broke apart when Dr. Brown coughed pointedly. Gem laughed as they stepped back from one another.

  “We should be getting to Myriad.”

  “Yes,” Sparks said. “I just wanted to make up for not seeing you.”

  “Oh,

  you

  did,”

  Gem

  assured

  him,

  remembering how much she was attracted to Sparks. When she first met him before they went to Anachronia, she thought he was just a handsome jock like the ones she cheered on at school, but he’s proven to be one of the smartest boys around, with a good head on his shoulders. He came in second to winning the game, right behind Gem. Without his help, she wouldn’t have won. Without his help, she wouldn’t have survived. Facing al the dangers and excitement of Anachronia, Gem had to admit, she and Sparks had grown very close. “Promise me that you won’t do anything stupid like get kil ed?”

  “I’l try not to,” he said softly, touching her lips with his fingertip. “I shal say the same about you.” He kissed her again then, and this time they only split when Dr. Brown started muttering about the possibility of the world ending while they were stil busy. With a shared smile, the two of them headed for their respective sleep pods, lay down, and closed the lids.

  Chapter 2

  Sparks had a hard time settling down in the sleep pod, and not just because he found himself thinking about
Gem. Gem was stil as beautiful and captivating as she was the first time he saw her. Dr.

  Brown had said that getting into Myriad was about your state of mind, but what state of mind? Sparks decided to try for something serene, clearing his thoughts as best he could as he drifted into a somnolent haze, heading towards sleep. He found himself thinking, for some reason, of birdsong.

  Birdsong, the feel of dappled sunlight, and the rustle of wind through trees…

  He was standing in a forest. Even knowing that they were trying to get there, the shock of the sudden transition was enough to make Sparks jump.

  He clanked as he did so. Looking down, he saw that he was wearing chain mail armor, a white tabard slung over it and emblazoned with a sunburst design.

  A sword hung at his hip.

  Gem stood just a few feet away. She looked as she had in Henry Word’s castle, unchanged by the shift to wherever this was. Sparks could certainly think of less pleasant things to see on arriving on another world. As though summoned by the thought, Rio stepped out from behind a tree. Like Sparks, the other boy was wearing armor, only his tabard had a wolf’s head design, a design mirrored in the pommel of the sword he wore.

  “Where are the others?” he asked. Gem shook her head.

  shook her head.

  “I haven’t seen them. Maybe they didn’t make it through.”

  Sparks nodded.

  “Dr. Brown did say that maybe only those who were meant to be in Myriad might get there.”

  “Assuming we’re in Myriad,” Rio pointed out.

  “This looks a lot like the Wickedly Woods in Anachronia to me.”

  “I don’t think so,” Gem said.

  Sparks didn’t either. While al woods probably looked the same to someone like Rio from one of the inner cities, having been raised in the country, he could see the differences. The trees weren’t the same, nor was the forest floor. Where the enclosing canopy of the Wickedly Woods had made for clear ground between the trees, here shrubs and wild flowers took up most of the space. It didn’t feel the same, either. There was something tranquil about this wood. It seemed like the sort of place that smal animals could forage without being pounced on by shadow creatures or dragons.

  “It’s definitely not the Wickedly Woods,” he said. Rio made a disbelieving sound.

  “And how would you know that? Are you an expert on woods, al of a sudden.”

  “Probably more than you.”

  “Boys,” Gem interrupted. “I do know the Wickedly Woods. I’ve spent enough time in them over the last couple of months. This definitely isn’t them. The only question is what we do now.”

  “We should try to find a path,” Sparks suggested, setting off in a random direction. The others fol owed, picking their way through the undergrowth as delicately as they could until they reached a rough track that meandered through the trees.

  “So,” Sparks asked, “which way?”

  “Either is as good,” Gem replied. “It’s not like we know which way we’re going. We just have to hope we meet someone who can point us in the right direction.”

  “Preferably without eating us, the way Dr.

  Brown said they might,” Rio added.

  That was a sobering thought, but Sparks did his best to ignore it. A faint zephyr of breeze came from their left, and on no more than that he set off in that direction. At least it would be cooler in the armor that way. They marched along in single file, keeping an eye on the trees. A few birds and smal animals flitted between them, but other than that there didn’t seem to be anything around.

  A cacophony of horns broke through the silence, along with a dul rumble that shivered through the ground. Tension ran taut through the three of them as they waited, scanning the brush ahead in an effort to spot what could be making such a racket, but a bend in the track obscured it.

  The first deer sprang around the bend at a ful run. It was huge, bigger than any deer Sparks had seen before, and it had the antlers to match. A moment of prudence made Sparks pul back to let the thing past, and it flashed by in a rattle of hooves on the track. More fol owed, in a wave of panicked flesh that rumbled by with snorts and gasps of breath.

  Caught up in the chaos, Sparks could barely keep track of Gem and Rio. Gem appeared and disappeared in glimpses between the fleeing animals, seeming almost to dance into the few gaps left there. Rio stood obstinately, and promptly found himself knocked sideways by one of the creatures.

  He would undoubtedly be bruised afterwards. Only when the flow of bounding animals started to abate a little did Sparks make his way over to Gem. A few stragglers loped past, but the majority seemed to have gone.

  “What could have spooked them?” Gem asked. Sparks shook his head.

  “With the sound of those horns, I think we’ve wandered into the middle of a hunt. We need to get out of here, Gem.”

  Even as he said it, Sparks knew it was too late. He caught the tremor of nearby branches, but by then, arrows were already flying. One struck one of the straggling deer, but more came close to them.

  “They wouldn’t shoot at us, would they?” Gem asked.

  “Why not?” Rio countered. For once, Sparks agreed with him. In a rare moment of rapport with the other boy, he looked over to him.

  “Run?”

  Rio nodded.

  “Run.”

  They ran, and Sparks, being the athlete that They ran, and Sparks, being the athlete that he was, sprinted with incredible speed, despite being encumbered by the armor he wore. Arrows flashed past, and he tried to weave as he ran to present a harder target to the archers. The worst part was that he couldn’t even see them. A glance back revealed nothing behind them as they ran, but arrows stil whistled from the woods.

  “Into the trees,” Gem yel ed, darting from the track. Sparks did his best to fol ow. The running was harder through the undergrowth, forcing them to dodge fal en branches and tangles of low shrubs, but at least the surrounding tree trunks afforded the three of them some protection from the unseen people assailing them. Though, as an arrow thudded into a trunk near his ear, Sparks began to suspect that it might not be al that much protection.

  It was probably a good time to find out if ruler words stil worked here.

  “Deleterious,” Sparks yel ed, pointing at an approaching arrow without stopping. It exploded into splinters. The others obviously saw him do it, because soon, they were using the same word, reducing incoming arrows to fragments when they could find the breath to.

  The hunting horns stil sounded behind them in a portent of coming violence. Sparks tried to think of some way out of the chase, and when he couldn’t, found himself hoping that Gem would be able to. Sparks knew he could keep running, but for how long? How long would the others be able to keep up? A few feet away, Gem and Rio looked to be running wel , but could it last? Even with arrows passing inches away, they couldn’t just flee indefinitely.

  As though the thought summoned it, Sparks found himself jerked to a halt so suddenly that he fel .

  A glance back revealed the problem. His tabard was pinned neatly to a tree, caught by an arrow as surely as if it had been nailed there. He twisted, trying to get free, and another arrow pierced the cloth on the other side catching it inextricably. The fabric was strong enough to hold him nearly immobile.

  “Sparks!”

  Gem stopped in her flight, and the moment she did, Rio stopped too. It was a mistake. More arrows came. Gem and Rio cried out as the arrows hit them; Gem’s taking her through the shoulder, hit them; Gem’s taking her through the shoulder, while Rio’s struck through his thigh. Seeing Gem hurt, twisting in pain against the tree she was pinned to, was enough to catalyze Sparks into action, wrenching at the arrows that held him. They proved impossible to move.

  Figures stalked from the trees then, watching the three of them warily, as though they might pose some threat despite being injured and restrained by the presence of the arrows. The first ones to arrive were strange, goat-legged and goat-horned, but otherwise
human looking, carrying bows of gold and spreading out to encircle their three captives.

  The next figures to arrive were inhumanly beautiful. They stood, tal , proud, and arrayed in shades of green that matched the forest, making them seem arboreal, creatures of the woods. Again they held bows. There was something almost primeval that seemed to emanate from them, a sense that they were ancient, and had seen things that Sparks never would. They spread out, none of them making a move to ameliorate the suffering of either Gem or Rio.

  Two more figures stepped from the trees. At any other time, Sparks would have focused on the man Dressed in the harlequin patchwork of color, the plethora of shades almost kaleidoscopic in the light of the forest. He had spent weeks fol owing Sparks, after al . Somehow though, he couldn’t take his eyes from the woman who walked beside that jester-like man. Red-gold hair fel wel beyond her shoulders, and though she looked like she might be nearly forty, she was easily the most beautiful woman Sparks had ever seen. There was something ethereal, almost spirit-like, about her as she walked over with steps that most dancers would have kil ed to achieve. She seemed like the sort of woman poets would have rhapsodized over.

  “Who are you?” Sparks demanded, ignoring the fact that he probably wasn’t in a position to demand anything, or indeed to do much of anything other than try to stay submissive and wait for the new arrivals to free him. “Let my friends go.”

  “Shh.”

  The woman stepped close to him, placing a finger to Sparks’ lips to quell his questions. Her brief glance at the others wasn’t without concern, but the speed with which she looked back to Sparks made it clear that he was the focus of her attention.

  She was as tal as him, and slender. She seemed to be studying Sparks’ face, and he couldn’t help but do the same. There was something… familiar about her. Her eyes were a deep green that matched his own, while the lines of her features were almost like looking into a mirror.

  She smiled, and the scintillating radiance of that smile seemed to catch the whole group with her up in it. Her slender finger moved to Sparks’ cheeks, tracing them delicately like she could hardly believe that he was real.