Jake Ransom and the Howling Sphinx (8 page)

“I will find you … Mark my words … You will be mine …”

The words faded back into the void as Jake's body flew through the darkness, drawn by the fiery band around his wrist.

But to where?

As if hearing this thought, too, Jake felt himself flung away, spinning head over heels. Darkness shredded around him, pierced by blinding light. Sights and sounds swirled like a tornado of confetti: the screech of a hunting bird, the flash of a golden sea, a river of rock.

A scream burst from his throat as the world righted
itself and crashed down upon him. He fell to his knees—

—into sand.

Jake stayed kneeling, not comprehending what he was seeing. Under a burning sun, a vast sea of sand spread all around him, rising and falling like waves. Adrift and alone, he gaped at the vastness.

Had he been transported to Pangaea again? If so, where was the jungle? Where was the valley of Calypsos?

He slowly gained his feet.

Where am I?

Jake turned in a slow circle and surveyed his new world. He shaded his eyes against the stinging brightness, while the heat threatened to beat him down. The air smelled oddly of burned cinnamon.

As his eyes adjusted to the glare, he spotted a few spiky bushes and a scattering of tall green plants that might be in the cactus family. Hopefully that meant he could find water. Off in the distance, a few towering pinnacles of reddish black rock stuck out of the sand dunes like boats riding a rough sea. Farther out, a strange haziness blurred the horizon. It was odd enough to draw his eye, but he had more important concerns at the moment.

He stared up. The blue was so bright, it made his eyes ache. The sun was halfway up the sky—or maybe it was halfway
down
. He had no way of knowing.

All he knew for sure was that he needed to find shade, to get out from under this blazing sun.

“
HELP! IS ANYONE OUT THERE?
”

Jake touched his lips, thinking the shout had come from his own mouth. He was certainly
thinking
those words. He turned in the direction of the voice. It sounded like someone in trouble, which pretty much described Jake's condition, too.

Happy for company, he climbed the ridge and called out. “Hello! I'm coming! Hang on!”

Another person shouted to Jake's left, this time a girl. “
PIN? IS THAT YOU?
”

Jake crested the ridge and spotted a gangly figure sheltered behind a red boulder below. The boy was all limbs and neck. His curly, mud brown hair was long in the back and cut straight across his brows like some Roman centurion. He was also soaking wet—and buck naked.

The boy turned toward Jake, cringing in fear and covering himself, then he straightened in shock and recognition.

“Jake?”

Jake could not believe it himself. “Pindor!”

Despite the impossibility of it all, this was indeed his friend from Calypsos. Pindor Tiberius, second son to
Elder Marcellus Tiberius, both descendants of a lost Roman legion stranded in Pangaea centuries ago.

Jake trudged down the far slope to meet his friend, filling his boots with hot sand. “What are you doing here?”

Before he could answer, a gleeful shout erupted to the left. He turned to see another familiar figure come running down the slope. Her dark hair flew behind her like a pair of raven's wings. She wore a richly embroidered shirt and a long skirt tied at the waist and slit to mid thigh. In the sunlight, her eyes flashed a brilliant emerald, matching the jade necklace bound around her neck.

At the sight of her—of both of his friends—the hopeless despair that had settled over Jake's heart receded.

“Mari,” he whispered in disbelief.

Marika Balam was the daughter of a Magister back in Calypsos, and the first friend he'd made here. She and her father were of Mayan descent, her people stranded in this savage land fifteen generations ago.

Marika flew up to him and hugged him tightly. “You returned!”

Jake blushed, which made his face only hotter. Pindor had retreated behind a boulder, flushing more brightly than Jake, but for an entirely different reason.

“Does anyone have a spare robe?” he asked. “Even a loincloth.”

Jake broke his embrace with Marika and shrugged off
his backpack. He searched through his extra clothes and fished out a T-shirt. He didn't have another pair of pants, but he had a change of underwear (of course). He passed the shirt and a pair of boxers over to Pindor.

Ducking away, his friend began to pull into them. “Thanks! I'll give these back when I get real clothes.”

“What happened to your own clothes?” Marika asked.

Popping his head back up, he cast her an exasperated look. “I was taking a bath. Then—
bam
—I'm dropped into the middle of Vulcan's fiery forge.”

He waved an arm at the desert.

“I don't understand,” Jake said, glancing at both of them. “How did you end up here?”

Wherever here is
.

Marika answered first. “I was at home, using a farspeaker to call my father to come eat, when something grabbed my wrist. It burned like fire. It pulled me into a moonless darkness. I then felt myself falling and crashed here.”

Pindor nodded. He stepped from behind the rocks, but he kept his bare feet fixed to a shady patch of sand. “That's what happened to me, too. Felt like I was yanked out of my skin.”

He lifted his arm and bared his wrist.

Jake stared between them. He recalled the lasso of fire that had dragged him through the void. Same as his two friends. He glanced to his wrist. All three of them had one
other thing in common. Jake twisted the circle of Atlantean metal on his arm.

“It must be something to do with these bands.”

Jake remembered something the Ur Elder had said about the metal when he had snapped the bands around their wrists, how the metal held a rare and potent alchemy … one of
binding
.

“‘
To bring you all together as one
,'” Jake mumbled.

Marika remembered, too. “Those were the words of Elder Mer'uuk.”

Jake nodded. “I think when I got transported here, the magic activated and drew us all together.”

“So this isn't your world?” Pindor asked, searching around.

“No. I'm sure we're still on Pangaea.” As proof, he touched his throat. “Why else can we still understand each other?”

Marika brought her fingers to her lips. “The alchemy of All-World is still with us!”

Jake felt it: the strange manipulation of his vocal cords that produced this common language. It took concentration for him to speak English now. The effect came about from a psychic energy field generated by Atlantean technology built into the heart of the great Temple of Kukulkan. The energy acted like a universal translator, letting the many tribes stranded here on Pangaea communicate.

Jake had a sudden thought. “If we can talk, that must mean we're still within range of the great temple. The pyramid's energy only reaches so far.”

Marika frowned, not buying into his assessment.

“What's wrong?” he asked.

“Papa has charts and maps of all the lands around our valley. They mark where the shield fades, laying out the safe boundaries of our world.”

Of course her people would have such maps.

Marika waved to the desert. “There is no such blasted land near our valley. I would know it.”

Jake stared outward. “Then something must be generating that same field here. Maybe there are other temples in Pangaea with such powers.”

“We should go find it,” Pindor said.

His friend was right. They needed shelter. If anyone lived out here, they'd set up residence in the shadow of that temple. Like the tribes of Calypsos had.

“But where do we even begin looking?” Jake asked.

No one had an answer to that.

In the silence, a crunch of sand reached them, steady and methodical, and clearly heading in their direction.

“Someone's coming,” Jake said.

“Or something,” Marika added.

Pindor glared at her. He had not wanted to hear that.

Jake picked up a fist-sized chunk of stone. Pindor scrambled to do the same but failed to find one big enough.
Jake urged Marika to stand behind him.

Over the crest of the dune, a small figure climbed into view, silhouetted against the sun. Jake couldn't make out who it was, only that it was clearly a person. The figure climbed out of the glare, not hurrying, just trudging along as if out for a walk. No longer blinded, Jake made out the newcomer's wide cheekbones and a prominent brow that stuck out from a sloped forehead. His lanky black hair shadowed his blue eyes.

Marika burst out from between Jake and Pindor. “Bach'uuk!”

The Neanderthal boy nodded, swiping his hair back, sweating profusely. How far had he trekked to join them? With his keen hearing, Bach'uuk must have heard them talking and hiked the distance to join them. Which worried Jake. Who or what else might be drawn here by their commotion?

Bach'uuk crossed to one of the rocks and sat down, exhausted, maybe even dehydrated. He wore a loose toga-like robe, belted at the waist. He lifted his arm, showing his wristband.

“All of us are one,” he intoned. So he had also figured out what had happened.

Bach'uuk removed a pair of leather objects from his toga pocket and tossed them to the sand at Pindor's feet.

The Roman's expression flashed from sullen to joyous. “Sandals!”

Pindor shoved his feet into them and did a half jig on the hot sand.

“Why do you have extra sandals with you?” Marika asked.

Bach'uuk explained. “Mer'uuk came to me at sunrise. Gave them to me. Told me to carry them. Not say why, only say that they would be needed.”

Marika brightened and clutched Jake's arm. “The Ur Elder must have known all of this would happen.”

Jake didn't doubt it. The Ur had a strange affinity for time, marking it in long and short counts. He remembered his own heightened intuition back at home after his exposure here. The Neanderthal tribes had been living in the shadow of the great temple far longer than anyone else.

“Then why didn't Mer'uuk send the rest of my clothes?” Pindor picked at his shirt. “Or weapons?”

Bach'uuk licked his dry lips. “Or water.”

Jake shook his head, mystified as usual by the Ur Elder's ways.

“Well, we can't just sit here.” Jake pointed toward the rocky pinnacles. “We should make for one of those. At least there'll be shade. Maybe water, too.”

Jake tossed his backpack over his shoulder.

Marika remained silent, her gaze contemplative.

“What is it?” he asked.

“We're forgetting something.” She looked at the others,
then down to her wrist. “When we were given these bands,
five
of them were handed out.”

Jake nodded. “To the four of us and to my sister, Kady.”