Crystal Doors #3: Sky Realm (No. 3) (25 page)

Lyssandra climbed onto the carpet with Vic and Tiaret. “The bonds of our magic are strengthened when we are together. This is right,” she said.

Piri swooped down in a flash of light and lithe movement.

Vic looked down and saw his father waving from the shore. Vic cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted, “Don’t worry about us. We’ll take care of it.”

“How exactly are we going to do that?” Gwen said.

Vic gave her an eyebrow shrug. “We discussed that, didn’t we? Go now, details later.”

As the carpets took off, Gwen held her xyridium pendant and, with great effort, opened a window on Irrakesh, and kept it visible in front of them all as they flew.

In the floating city, the people had risen up and were still flooding through the streets, taking back their buildings, throwing out the last of the aeglors. Azric and Orpheon, however, stood outside the giant palace. Irrakesh hovered, thrumming with power. The dark sage guided it over the Citadel, over Rubicas’s laboratory and tower, over all the main buildings.

“Faster,” Sharif said, working the embroidery magic on his flying carpet. Piri flew beside him.

“Oh, no,” Gwen said, looking at the image of Azric with sudden dread. “I think I know what he’s going to do.”

After listening to the window, Lyssandra said, “His best plans to destroy Elantya have failed. He believes the simplest solution is . . .” She swallowed hard.

Vic looked at her and drew in a sharp breath. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Needing no interpretation, Sharif finished for Lyssandra. “He intends to drop Irrakesh directly on top of Elantya. He will destroy everything.”

“Now that his armies have been defeated,” Tiaret said, “he has nothing to lose. He will do it.”

“No, he won’t,” Vic said. “We can’t let him.”

They were still well below Irrakesh when the images of Azric and Orpheon in the window flung their arms wide, levitated above the floor of the balcony on which they stood, and began chanting.

“They are speaking the ancient tongue,” Lyssandra said. “I do not know all of the words, but the dark sages are working great evil.”

“Get out your crystal daggers, if you have them. Be prepared for anything,” Gwen warned.

Suddenly the sky above the two carpets began to fall — or, more precisely, the city that had been hovering above them. If Irrakesh plummeted to the ground, every living person in the city above and the city below would die.

“Now!” Lyssandra cried.

In unison, almost without understanding what they were doing, the five members of the Ring of Might raised their arms high overhead, their hands outstretched toward Irrakesh. They did not need their daggers. Quicksilver streams of power flowed upward from them. Lightning crackled beneath the descending city. Piri zoomed in circles around the display of raw energy. Rippling currents of air formed a shimmering support under Irrakesh and heaved it back into place.

Then all was silence. To Vic’s surprise, Gwen’s window was still open, showing the frightened people of the city looking around with cautious hope.

Azric and Orpheon were on the palace balcony once again. Shackled and gagged, Vizier Jabir stoood nearby.

Sharif and Vic urged the carpets up to the city. Piri was crackling with energy but clearly much weaker than she had been. As soon as they reached the balcony, Tiaret sprang onto it, holding her unbreakable teaching staff. Sharif and Vic skidded the carpets to a halt on the tiled floor.

Azric and Orpheon turned. The dark sage was smiling. “Good. I so wanted you here to see what will happen next. I take it you didn’t approve of my most recent endeavor? Of course you didn’t — I can see that my motives were unclear. I wanted to save Irrakesh, I really did, but it seemed the most sensible choice under the circumstances. I understand perfectly why you would object. Still, I can’t allow such interference to go unpunished, can I? Elantya, of course, is the greatest obstruction to my plans. Therefore, it — and most of you — must be eliminated. You see my point?”

Orpheon made a squawking sound that Vic realized was some kind of a laugh.

Sharif went over to check on Jabir, while Vic focused on Azric and Orpheon.

Now Vic saw up close exactly how much damage submersion in the lavaja cracks had done to Orpheon. His skin was grayish in patches, reddened in others, lumpy and yet polished smooth as if wrapped in a covering of melted and burned plastic. His eyes looked milky and uneven, no longer where they were supposed to be. His entire skull must have softened like wax, then shifted and changed.

“Glad to see that the outside matches the inside now, Orpheon. I like the new look. It suits you.”

Azric’s henchman was enraged. “I could tear you limb from limb, shock you to the marrow of your bones with dark magic rather than let you all die in a cataclysm.”

Azric glanced at him in annoyance. “Don’t be petty. I see that I was wrong to imperil Irrakesh simply to destroy Elantya. Instead, I will call forth lavaja from deep beneath the sea in a great volcanic eruption. Once I’ve eliminated all of the sages, the remaining members of the Pentumvirate, and Elantya itself, nothing will stand between me and opening the sealed doors. I can unleash my deathless armies.” He gave a sad smile. “I only wish you could all survive long enough to witness it, but alas, we cannot have everything.” He raised his hands. Vic heard a rumbling far, far below.

“Wait!” Gwen cried. “We have something you want — something you need. You can’t kill us.”

“Oh, but I can — at least some of you. There are so many problems to solve.”

“We can solve them for you,” Gwen said. “Much faster. We’ll make a bargain with you.”

“No — we
won’t,
” Vic said.

His cousin shot him a whose-side-are-you-on look, her violet eyes blazing. “Yes, we will. Hear me out, Azric.”

“Gwenya, stop! You cannot!” Lyssandra cried.

Orpheon glowered, his melted-wax face flowing into a mask of anger. “Do not let them trick you, Azric. They will never agree to help you. We proved that under the sea with the merlons.”

Azric brushed aside the comment. “Am I so easily tricked by mere children?”

Orpheon snapped backward in shock. “No, Azric. You are undefeatable.”

The dark sage turned his smooth face toward Gwen. “Now, then. You refused me many times before. You and your cousin have very strong powers.”

“You want to get to the worlds where your armies live — you even tried to get Vic’s mother to break a seal for you.”

“Yes, but she defied me. Go on.”

Nervous, Vic glanced around at his friends. Tiaret appeared angry. Sharif looked hopeful. Lyssandra’s eyes swam with tears.

Gwen forged ahead. “If you spare our friends and Elantya and Irrakesh, Vic can open a doorway for you to any world you choose — create a new door, just as he made the one here in the sky.”

Azric looked startled. Then a smile crept across his face. “Yes . . . of course. Simple and elegant.” He glanced at Jabir. “And I already have my own Master Key to use after that.”

Gwen moved her hand as if flattening a piece of paper in the air in front of her. “Look. Your armies are waiting for your return.” A window opened. In the noiseless image, countless thousands of armored soldiers were conducting battle drills in a field outside a massive fortress.

“You see?” Gwen said. “We can reunite you with them.”

Vic saw that this was indeed one of the worlds that had been conquered and devastated by the powerful immortal warriors Azric had been hoping to reach. But through Lys sandra they already knew that the dark sage’s generals there were not happily waiting for Azric. They hated him for abandoning them. Azric had no idea that the celebration he had glimpsed through the window had ended with his deathless generals and warriors tearing the surrogate Azric to pieces.

Vic shook his head, trying to look resolute. ”You can’t make me do this, Gwen. I won’t.”

Tears trickled from Lyssandra’s frightened cobalt eyes now. “Please, Viccus. To save us?” She put a hand on Vic’s arm, and her voice dropped to a whisper. “For
me
?” Looking desperate, she turned toward Azric. “Yes, Viccus will open a doorway to your armies for you.”

“You are certain you won’t need to unseal a door — you will simply create a new one for me?” Azric said.

“That’s right,” Vic said. “
If
you promise not to kill my friends, or drop Irrakesh on Elantya—because
that
would kill my parents, our friends, and thousands of other people in both cities.”

Azric paced back and forth on the balcony, a calculating look in his mismatched eyes. Orpheon kneaded his hands together. “Do not trust them,” he said.

“Once he opens a new crystal door,” Azric said, as if Orpheon were simply slow on the uptake, “the sealed one becomes irrelevant. I have a Key to travel back and forth. You understand what kind of bargain you are making, children?”

Sharif said, “Could it be worse than letting my flying city be annihilated and Elantya destroyed? This way at least we have a chance. There is hope.”

Azric straightened with delight. “Very well, then. I offer you a reprieve — for now. You understand that I may require more than one of my worlds to spare Irrakesh and Elantya permanently?”

Vic nodded. “I thought you might.”

Orpheon leaned toward the sage. “Think, Azric — is it worth it? You’ve wanted to destroy Elantya for so long. It is in our grasp.”

“There was never a question about my ultimate goal,” Azric said. “Perhaps you do not understand me as well as you should.” He turned to Vic, his ancient eyes avid with anticipation. “Go on, then. Open a new crystal doorway and reunite me with my immortal armies — and Orpheon, too.”

Lyssandra wept softly with relief.

“It is not right.” Raising her staff, Tiaret moved as if to stop Vic, but Azric pushed her back with a flick of his finger.

Standing close to the glowing window that showed the enemy fighters, Vic spread his hands and concentrated. His magic worked in an instant, sparkles forming a new crystal door in the air, a portal into a devastated, condemned world. He was offering Azric the culmination of a dream he had cherished for five thousand years.

The invisible fragments of air parted and suddenly they could hear a great roar, a resounding cry of ferocious voices and clatters of weapons. The heat and the smell pushed back out into the skies of Irrakesh. Azric took hold of Jabir’s chain and pulled him toward the new door.

Vic thought of his beloved Elantya, where he knew so many people, where his father remained, where his mother lay trapped in ice coral. “Wait!” he said as Azric started to step through the door. “First, tell me how to thaw my mother. How do I break the ice coral spell?”

Azric gave him a smug look. “I want to help you, I really do.” He raised his eyebrows. “Perhaps when you open the next world for me . . . ?”

Vic’s heart sank at this cruel jab, though he had expected nothing better from the dark sage.

He looked back at Gwen’s window. Noticing the crystal door, Azric’s soldiers began to rush toward it, snarling. “Hurry,” Gwen said. “They can’t all come out here onto the balcony. It will collapse.”

Orpheon balked. “I could stay here, Azric — rule Irrakesh while you gather your armies.” Piri flashed her blindingly bright light, directing it into the faces of the dark sages.

As planned, Tiaret shoved Orpheon toward the crystal door. The rest of the five sprang into action, too. Together they pushed. Suddenly understanding that this had been their intention all along, Azric cried out and tried to cast a spell at them. But their powers linked to form a rippling shield of energy in the air. Piri knocked Vizier Jabir’s chain from Azric’s grasp just before a powerful blast of wind slammed into Azric and Orpheon, propelling them through the door. Tiaret was already working her magic.

The door shut. In the window image, they could already see the dark sage searching for a Key.

Sharif sealed the crystal door. The portal that Vic had just created was permanently and irrevocably closed.

Gwen allowed her window to remain open just long enough to let them see Azric and Orpheon face the immortal armies rushing toward them. At the last moment Azric seemed to realize that his generals were not there to welcome him with open arms. Then the image faded.

Sharif ran to help Jabir.

“Cool,” Vic said.

Lyssandra chuckled.

Vic hugged her and grinned. “Remind me never to play poker with you. You’re a pretty good actress.”

“We all played our parts well,” Tiaret said. “The weeping, however, was quite believable. This will make a fine chapter in the Great Epic.”

Gwen gave an involuntary shudder. “It
was
a pretty risky plan.”

“But it worked,” Vic said.

“Especially when the Air Spirits added their power to ours,” Sharif observed.

And suddenly the giant forms of Air Spirits appeared in the sky all around Irrakesh.

“Thank you for your help,” Sharif said with amazement.

In a sweeping rush, like musical thunder, a chorus of Air Spirit voices replied, “You and Piri have shown us the true nature of friendship. You risked your life for her, and she for you. Our sacrifice was a small price to pay to save our beloved friends in Irrakesh and our new friends in Elantya.”