Ominous Odyssey (Overworld Chronicles Book 13) (24 page)

It was a depressing thought, but also the truth. "So you think there's actually something out here?"

"There's a lot of ocean out here." Elyssa waved a hand at the vast area. "There's still plenty of exploring to do."

I hoped she was right.

Though the crew was tired, Illaena ordered the
Falcheen
forward. I switched to demon vision and found an aether stream a hundred feet off the surface of the water and pointed it out. The ship glided into position and the navigators were finally able to park it and get some rest.

"The
Znosh
never made it this far?" I asked the captain.

She shook her head. "They simply marked this area with an X." Illaena displayed the map and scrolled to the end of the trail forged by the
Znosh
. It appeared to end inside the storm several miles from our current position.

"Great," Shelton grumbled. "Maybe we'll find buried treasure."

Holding his arcphone out at arm's length, Adam turned in place, a curious wrinkle in his brow. "That's odd."

I blew out a breath. "That sums up just about everything on this trip."

"No, I mean the readings are odd." Adam projected a holographic graph showing several jagged lines in hues of red, green, and yellow. "I ran a series of tests on the atmosphere in Eden and compared them to Seraphina. Basic elements like oxygen, nitrogen, and so forth are nearly identical, though the O-two content here is slightly elevated."

"That's great, Einstein." Shelton folded his arms. "Why don't you skip the science part before you make everyone's eyes glaze over?"

"I think it's interesting," I admitted.

Elyssa elbowed me. "Because you're still a nerd at heart."

Adam swiped away all but three lines on the graph. He pointed to the lowest one. "These are the atmospheric aether levels in Eden." He highlighted the line that was far above the other two. "This is Seraphina."

I frowned. "So, what's the middle one?"

Adam pointed down. "Right here in Voltis."

"Not surprising," Shelton said. "I'll bet the maelstrom sucks up most of the aether in the air."

"Possibly." Adam displayed two other lines. "The problem is, oxygen is closer to Eden levels, and the sun here is fractionally brighter than on Seraphina."

I reflexively looked up and immediately regretted it as an intense white sun nearly blinded me. Others winced as they repeated my mistake and blinked tears from their eyes. It didn't take me long to realize where Adam was headed with his analysis. "We're not in Seraphina anymore, are we?"

He shook his head. "I don't think so."

"Well, ain't that peachy?" Shelton took out his arcphone and began running scans of his own. "Guess that means Voltis is like the pocket dimensions back in Eden."

"Does that mean we're in the Glimmer?" Elyssa asked.

I shook my head. "No, the Glimmer is nothing but shattered land and stars. Unless this is a pocket dimension, we must be in one of the other realms."

Shelton blew out a breath. "Too bad it ain't Eden." He looked at Adam. "Any guesses as to where we are?"

"No." Adam put his hands on his hips and looked around. "There's only one way to find out, and that's to do some exploring."

"Brilliant," Shelton said. "Maybe we can find the natives and ask them."

Illaena stepped over to the railing and looked out at the ocean. Tahlee stepped by her side, her flaming red hair dancing in the breeze. When I joined them, I noticed a spark in Illaena's eyes I hadn't seen before. She looked excited.

My sense of adventure crawled out from beneath the fear, doubt, and other emotions dominating the journey here, and I felt a spark of wonder fan into flame.
We're in another realm!
After everything I'd been through, I sometimes forgot there was more to life than endless war.

"Are we truly no longer on Seraphina?" Illaena asked me.

"If Adam thinks so, then yeah, I'd have to agree with him." I leaned over the edge and looked at the azure water.

"You did the impossible," Tahlee said. "You did what even the
Znosh
could not do."

Illaena shook her head. "We all did."

Shelton and Adam's voices rose in debate.

"What I'm asking is, if we go out another way, do we end up in the main part of whatever realm this is?" Shelton said.

"I don't know if the other realm is confined to Voltis or not," Adam replied. "Maybe Voltis acts like an Alabaster Arch, transporting from one realm to another."

"Or maybe the two realms touch here," Elyssa suggested.

"Yeah, or that," Adam said.

I opened my mouth to toss in my two cents when a huge dorsal fin broke the surface of the ocean. Two more fins soon joined it, all swimming in a perfect line.

"Holy pork-fried pants," Shelton said. "Are those sharks?"

"Anyone bring a fishing pole?" Adam said dryly.

Three aquamarine creatures leapt from the water. With long lean muzzles, and scales that shimmered like polished metal, it only took me a split second to properly classify what I was seeing.

"Sea dragons!" I shouted.

But that wasn't what had everyone's attention. Mounted on each dragon was a female rider.

The dragons spread webbed wings and glided up toward us, their riders staring serenely at us as if this was just another day in their lives.

Elyssa's eyes flared wide. "Do you think we're on Draxadis?"

I was too stunned to answer.

Illaena issued orders, and Tahlee's shouts rose above the bellows of the encroaching dragons.

"Ready foils, adjust heading a hundred-eighty degrees!" Tahlee grabbed one of the dragon spears from the soldiers as they prepared to repel any invaders.

I'd seen enough dragon attacks to know that we were no match for three of them. Our only hope was a fast retreat. The only problem was, where would we go? We couldn't go back into the maelstrom, and unless we stuck to the aether stream, the navigators would tire rapidly without rest.

Before the
Falcheen
could take flight, the dragons were upon us. I channeled a sphere of Brilliance in one hand, and Murk in the other, prepared to unleash everything I had on the riders.

"You will come with us," one of the women said in melodious voice that was more song than speech. The words were Cyrinthian, but heavily accented, almost another dialect. Her inhumanly large eyes made her alluring and horribly creepy all at the same time.

Only one other person I'd met spoke that way and had the same huge eyes that these women had. Though I'd only spoken with Melea once, she'd also creeped me out like these women—these Sirens.

The dragons glided in circles around the ship, none making an attempt to land on the deck. Illaena looked like a trapped animal, eyes darting all around the ship.

"We wish you no harm," the Siren sang softly. "Come."

I felt a sudden yearning to do exactly what she said. Judging from the glazed looks on the faces of the others, it seemed obvious we all did.

Illaena shook her head as if resisting a waking dream. "What sorcery is this?"

"Stop compelling us," I said in a stern voice.

The Sirens exchanged knowing looks, and their presumed leader, a woman with flowing green hair and deep blue eyes, nodded. "It was not our intent. We have not seen outsiders in some time and forgot the effect our voices have on others."

A cold knife of fear buried itself in my guts. Could these Sirens make us do anything they wanted by singing? I didn't want to find out, but right now, we had no choice but to accompany them.

Illaena seemed to reach the same conclusion. "Lead the way, and we will follow."

The Sirens guided their mounts into a loose formation and turned away from the ship, apparently unconcerned that we might turn tail and flee. They also had to know it wouldn't do us any good, because there was nowhere to run.

If there's nowhere to go, where are we going?

It took a while to answer that question because after twenty minutes of travel, I still didn't see anything except water.

Elyssa gripped my arm and pointed dead ahead. At first I saw only the sparkling reflection of the sun off the water, but as we drew closer, I realized something was strange about the water. It wasn't until we were within a mile of the anomaly that I realized what I was seeing wasn't endless ocean, but a reflection of endless ocean—as if someone had mounted a huge mirror in the water.

It was like looking at one of those drawings with a second image hidden inside, seen once you shifted your perspective. One second it was all ocean, the next it was a huge reflective dome of mist. The dragons flew through it as if it wasn't even there. I had to resist throwing up my arms and bracing for impact when the
Falcheen
's prow pierced the bubble.

Cool, salty mist brushed my face and lips and a mountainous island appeared a half mile ahead. The dragons swooped low, and Illaena directed the
Falcheen
to follow. We glided twenty feet off water so calm, it reflected everything like a mirror.

A dozen dolphins burst from the water, squeaking excitedly and leaping in graceful arcs off the starboard bow. Creatures that resembled manta rays glided up into the air and hovered next to the vessel before veering off and diving back into the water.

Amazing as the sea life was, I could hardly take my eyes off the island. Marble towers rose high, ending in tall spires with statues holding heroic action poses. A huge citadel rose at the top of the mountain, its many marble columns supporting the monumental statue of a thickly muscled, bearded man. A fierce expression gleaming in his marble eyes, the man was frozen in the act of casting a trident toward the water while his lower half was caught in the act of transforming from scales and fins to legs.

The impressive architecture reminded me of ancient Greece, but with a modern twist. It didn't take a mythology specialist to realize that the statues were those of gods. In this place, Poseidon was a bigger fish than Zeus.

"Son of a gun, are those ships?" Shelton jabbed a finger toward the harbor.

Long piers crafted from coral reefs and sea shells radiated from the curving shore. Some of the ships nearly defied description. The largest resembled a huge floating conch shell with windows and terraces all along the surface, like a seashell houseboat.

Next to it floated a huge starfish with the shell of a horseshoe crab mounted on top. I couldn't even imagine what made it float, much less propelled it in the water. Mingled with the fantastical ships were a few mundane sea-going vessels with wooden hulls and sails.

"I've never seen the like," Illaena said. "Why would you purposefully float a ship on the water when you can fly?"

"Maybe their ships can't fly," I said.

Shelton nodded toward our Siren guides. "Yeah, but they have freaking dragons!"

"Can't argue with that logic," Adam said. "On the other hand, did anyone notice the statue on the mountain?"

"You'd have to be blind to miss it," Shelton said. "This place looks like ancient Greece, gods and all."

"Except the architecture is too advanced," Adam said. "I couldn't even make a guess as to what era this represents."

"How could it be related to Greece when it's out in the middle of the Pacific Ocean?" I said.

"Voltis may be in the equivalent area of the Pacific Ocean, but it's not in Eden." Adam paused and then shrugged. "Geographical location doesn't mean much when we're talking interdimensional shifts."

"Wherever we are, it's beautiful." Elyssa had a dreamy look in her eyes that reminded me of the first time we'd gone to Venice, Italy.

"Yeah, too bad we're not on vacation." Shelton blew out a breath. "Let's hope the natives don't plan to eat us."

Adam blew out a breath. "Man, Zagg would probably give his two left nuts to be here right now."

Zagg, an Arcane history professor at Arcane University, was one of the most knowledgeable people in the Overworld when it came to Eden, but after meeting me, he'd learned more about ancient history in months than in all his previous years. Primarily because I attracted the sort of crowd that had been involved in world domination at some point of their careers.

"I almost wish it was Zagg here and not me," Shelton muttered. He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. "Answer me this. If the Sundering happened before ancient Greece even existed, then what in the hell is a statue of Poseidon doing here?"

I shrugged. "Maybe this is where the idea for the Greek gods came from."

Thousands of years even before the First Seraphim War, all the different supernatural races lived together on Earth. Cora had told me the story of how the Seraphim ruled the skies, the Sirens, the sea, and the Lyrolai, the land. There had been other supernatural creatures like dragons and, hell, maybe even unicorns back in those days. An ancient race of god-like beings, the Apocryphan, had taken over and, at some point, gone to war with each other.

This had the unfortunate effect of shattering Earth into separate realms—Eden, Seraphina, Haedaemos, Aquilis, Draxadis, Sturg, and so forth and so on. It had isolated the Apocryphan from each other along with their kingdoms. Eventually, the Sirens had trapped these gods in a prison of their own making—the Abyss.

I'd learned in my adventures that the Sirens were also responsible for making the Alabaster Arches, the Obsidian Arches, and had been the architects for the Apocryphan. If they didn't plan to kill us, it seemed like a grand opportunity to find out a lot more about the universe.

Maybe I should be a history professor.

"The Apocryphan who ruled the Sirens was named Posthanied." Adam said.

His statement snapped me from my thoughts. "Uh, I think you're right."

"Sounds close to Poseidon," Elyssa said. "Who knows? Maybe the entire Greek pantheon came from the Apocryphan."

"I ain't too sure how you get Zeus and Ares from Kathazal and Xanomiel," Shelton said, naming two of the other ancient beings, "but knock yourselves out."

The Sirens guided us toward a wide stone pier shaped like a sea turtle with a shell a hundred yards in diameter. Their green-haired leader pointed down and Illaena gave Tahlee the command to land.