The Shade Riders and the Dreadful Ghosts (21 page)

A woman with curly bright red hair and
freckles came forward with a large gray roundworm she had pulled
from a Nike pouch.

Leandra put it to the horse’s ribs, and it
disappeared inside the wound. Nova wrinkled her nose. “Will it hurt
her, Leandra? What will happen to the arrow?”

“No, it won’t hurt her, and it should push
the arrow out. It’ll also stop the bleeding and ease the pain some.
We can fly now, and we have to hurry to get to Captain Palherd
before the foolish war starts.” Leandra and Takeesha got back in
the cart, but something caught Nova and Max Kim’s eye.

Nova noticed plants that were piggybacked on
the trees. Hummingbirds flittered from tree to tree drinking nectar
from different colorful orchids-each more beautiful than the next.
Nova breathed in the wonderful fragrances they produced.

“Don’t those orchids smell fine?” Takeesha
said, taking a deep breath through her nose as she sat in the cart.
The humid wind ruffled Nova’s clothing. A fast moving river churned
in the near distance, sending up a cloud of mist. Max Kim pointed
to a large lizard that had been basking but now took a plunge into
the water.

This was a beautiful world.

“Keep your eyes on the mist,” Leandra said
quietly. As

Nova watched, sunlight hit the mist rising
from the

river and created a beautiful rainbow. But it
didn’t…

she realized that it was a rainbow portal,
like the

one she’d seen on the road so long ago or the
one

they came through.

A vampire sauntered out of the violet color
in a

purple fog. She showed her fangs, then turned
around and disappeared back inside her dimension.

A unicorn galloped out of the green color on
a plane of luxurious verdant grass. He reared up, kicked, then he
turned back around and trotted back inside. Shade perked up her
head, gave a slight neigh, and stamped her foot.

“You see,” Leandra said, Whenever you create
a rainbow with enough magic around, it opens portals into other
dimensions. Most of the things that come through are shocked enough
that they turn around and go back, but occasionally you get a
little leakage. Like magic leaking into your dimension. Rainbow
portals have various monsters showing themselves because the
Idealites use them so much.”

A mermaid swam out of the blue color in some
splashing waters then dove into the waves and vanished from sight
back into the rainbow.

“Well, rattle your dags, ankle biters.”
Leandra waved her arm to the Shade Riders while she sat in the
cart, then waved to her Neanderthal friends. “See you mates.”

Nova jumped onto Shade’s back, and Max Kim
jumped up behind her. “Are you guys ready?” Nova asked. Everyone
said, “Yeah,” though Takeesha’s voice sounded tiny. Nova turned
Shade and coaxed her into a run to get lift off, but the clearing
was not as big as Nova thought. Shade climbed up the wall of trees.
Nova whipped off her belt.

“What are you doing?” Max Kim said.

“Saving us.” Nova threw the belt under
Shade’s neck and grabbed both ends. She pulled up and back with
everything she had. Shade grunted, flying upwards with all her
might.

“Help me, Max Kim,” Nova yelled. Max Kim
reached around Nova,

grabbed the two ends and pulled up too.

Shade fought for altitude. Her feet began to
rattle the top most branches as she gained height. Then the cart
axle hit a branch and hooked on. “I was afraid of that.” Nova
kicked Shade hard to keep the momentum going.

“Oh oh,” Benny said.

Nova looked back. Takeesha had turned white
as a ghost. She started to waver back and forth toward Benny, and
then Leandra. Nova thought she was going to faint. Leandra threw an
arm around her and pulled her close. Shade shifted suddenly and
broke the branch. Chunks of wood flew everywhere. Nova sighed in
relief as she could see over the tree tops. They were on their way
again.

Leandra told her to keep
going in the original direction to get to Captain Palherd. During
the rest of the trip to the army camp, they encountered a few stray
arrows that flew skyward but nothing to worry about.

Nova wanted to yell “you missed, idiot!” but
she kept her mouth shut. She didn’t want to jinx it.

Leandra spied the army camp and told Nova to
land. Nova pressed on Shade’s neck and the flying horse hit the
ground with a loud grunt.

“Leandra,” Nova said, “Shade still seems in
pain,”

“She’ll get better as the worm does its work.
I’m sure your mother has told you animals don’t feel as much pain
as people. They have a higher threshold. We need to find the
captain, and quick.”

Nova tried to lead Shade, but the horse
wanted to nibble the grass next to the path. Shade became stubborn
and snorted as she tried to pull the lead rope from Nova and go
wherever she wanted to go.

“Hurry Nova. Benny, are you coming? Max Kim
why don’t you help Nova,” Leandra started out with Takeesha, who
seemed to have her color back now that they were on the ground,
striding behind.

“Yeah, I’m coming.” Benny unclamped his chair
from the cart and followed behind. Max Kim grabbed Shade so fast
her head flew up. She had a big clump of grass that had the dirt
and roots attached. She nodded her head up and down trying to get
the roots and dirt off her grass. Nova and Max Kim both laughed.
The cart, only having one wheel now was going to have to be left
behind. They took her harness and cart off and pulled her along
with them.

Nova saw many tents that used fat-covered
cloth and animal pelts to keep the rain out. Inside, the army slept
on a pallet of blankets on the ground. Neanderthal people in what
looked like green canvas tunics cooked meat or vegetables over
fires, or relaxed and joked around. Some practiced their aim with
either freezing or laser spells. Fractals were flying everywhere in
the clamor. Nova and Max Kim finally caught up to the rest of the
group. They found Leandra talking with a woman with red hair also
dressed in green canvas tunic but with a leopard skin that ran the
length of her right shoulder down to her left hip.

“I wonder if she is Captain Palherd,” Nova
said quietly to

Max Kim. He nodded. The woman looked in
Nova’s direction. Nova looked behind herself but saw nothing. The
woman told a man to her left something and pointed to Shade. The
man came over to Nova and smiled as he took the flying horse from
her grasp and jumped on.

“Hey!” Nova yelled. “What are you doing?
Where are you going?”

The man kicked Shade, and she took to the
air. It happened so fast even Leandra spun around with surprise.
Leandra yelled at Captain Palherd, who yelled back, both in a
language Nova couldn’t understand. Leandra strode over next to Nova
and watched Shade disappearing. “They want to spy on the enemy.
Hopefully, Shade will be back soon.”

“Tough, She’s injured. I don’t want her
injured again.” Nova let out a huge, long winded whistle. Up above
the trees, Shade banked around and headed right back. The man tried
to get her to turn around, but Shade had the bit and she wanted
some carrots. Nova held up the carrots for Shade to see. As Shade
came in for a landing, she let out a huge neigh in response. The
Neanderthal man continued to struggle, but he could not turn the
horse around. Shade landed and grabbed up all the carrots at once
into her mouth.

Then the man did something unexpected. He
grabbed Nova and threw her over his lap and took off again.

“That will stop the whistling,” he said.

Nova watched as her friends got smaller in
the background. They waved and yelled for her to come back. As Nova
flew further away, the trees blocked her friends from her
sight.

“Look, she’s only got a couple of more hours
yet,” Nova said.

“That makes no sense, woman.”

“She’s really just a baby horse made into a
mare by magic.”

“Don’t talk nonsense.”

Nova rolled her eyes. What was the use, he
wasn’t going to listen to her. She sighed and checked her watch to
see how long she had before she plummeted to her death. Leandra’s
eye appeared in the watch. “I’ll catch up-- be there soon. Hang
tight.” Her eye winked out.

Lying on Shade’s boney shoulder didn’t help
either. Her stomach and ribcage complained. A couple times she felt
as though she was going to fall off. Nova could hear yelling,
screams, and magic going off. They passed over a huge expanse of
trees and came finally to a clearing, where a battle was going on.
She sure didn’t want to be down there.

Arrows flew up toward them, and Nova felt
Shade lurch. The man turned sharp to the left. Nova lost her hold
on Shade’s mane and fell forward. The man grabbed her shoe-- which
came off and tumbled down with her. She somersaulted and headed for
the ground.

Fortunately, Shade was not flying that high.
She landed

with an “oof” in a pile of dirty straw. It
wasn’t that much

worse than diving down the chute into the hay
pile in the barn.

Four hands reached in and pulled her out as
she scrabbled to put her shoe back on. It was two Neanderthal men,
who dragged her toward a cave and took her inside.

It was dark inside, and it took awhile for
Nova’s eyes to adjust. She was shoved into a room, and the doorway
was blocked by a guard. He stood facing her, arms folded over his
chest and scowled.

Nova scratched her nose, without looking at
her watch; Nova said softly, “Leandra, I’m being held inside a
cavern. Come get me, please?”

The guard rushed Nova, snatched off her
watch, and smashed it into the floor with his bare foot. Then he
stood back in the doorway frowning.

Nova picked up the broken watch and shoved it
in her pocket. Another Neanderthal man came to the room and told
the guard to take her to the Legislative Chamber.

The man squeezed Nova’s arms hard enough to
bruise as he dragged her up a steep incline and down a long
corridor. They arrived at a place that didn’t look like a political
room at all. It was the same room that she saw in the mirror when
Max Kim was doing magic in the back pasture, when they had the
picnic. The room was in an entirely different angle from what she
saw in the mirror, but this was definitely the room. All the walls
had eight-inch lights going up vertically. The lights pulsed gently
like they were alive. The Chamber had a fireplace and a large basin
of water plus a waterfall in a corner across from the hole in the
wall.

She could see a dirty man hunched over the
basin. He had been fishing and had caught a kind of invisible fish.
Two big spotted cats begged for it, licking their lips. The filthy
man with spider web clothing and two completely different dirty
socks on quickly ripped it apart and gulped it down.

“Hey, those are our socks,” Nova yelled.

The small man approached Nova, looking her
over. Nova felt uncomfortable, and she wrinkled her nose. He
stank.

“So Nova is here in Ordin. Hmmm- what girl
want?”

“Well, I don’t think I want those socks now
that you stole them from our dryer.”

Nova was inclined to run for it, but then she
saw movement over in the corner and noticed the white-haired man.
He had tears running down his cheeks. He was the one she’d seen in
the school library reflection and was watching her.

“Answer Ahlon, little girl. Asked a question
and want an answer.”

“I don’t tell my own mother everything. You
think I would tell you?”

Ahlon pulled the old man forward. “Very well,
does Nova see this man here? Ralf is girl’s father. Too bad never
got to know at all.” Ahlon laughed evilly.

Nova gasped, and relief flooded her entire
body. She finally found her father, alive! Clash, she even looked
like him.

“What are you going to do with him?” Nova was
afraid to hear the answer.

“Now that have Nova, Ralf no longer
needed.”

Holy Chaos! If she didn’t come, Ralf might
get to live, and now that she was there, he might be killed. Was
that why he was crying?

Suddenly she heard a whack against the side
of the chamber, which caught her attention. Shade and Leandra were
there at the window. Shade’s wing must have hit the wall. Nova
changed her thoughts.

Ralf’s body crumpled to the floor.

“Noooo!” Nova ran to the blob of silk
clothing on the floor. A loud “RRRRIIIIPPP” could be heard from the
pile. The sound echoed off the walls.

“What happened?” Ahlon yelled franticly.

Ralf’s body sprang up. He immediately moved
between Nova and Ahlon, blocking her view of the dirty little
man.

“Thanks, Nova,” Ralf said over his shoulder,
“for exorcizing the ghost that was inside my body. Made new bones
magically in an instant, thanks to the truckload of calcium
tablets.”

Ralf had his hands behind his back, and Nova
held them tight. Leandra dove through the hole in the wall and into
the room.

“I’m here. You two okay?”

Ralf and Nova nodded.

“Take first shot, old man,” Ahlon said.
“Blood stealer, Leandra, come for death?”

“I’ve got nothing better to do,” Leandra
said.

“Leandra nothing against you,” Nova said,
“but I think my dad and I have this under control. Right?” The word
‘dad’ still felt odd to Nova, but in a good way.

“Nova, don’t underestimate Ahlon. Your powers
aren’t up to snuff yet,” Leandra said.

“Listen to Leandra, Nova,” Ralf said.

“By the way, Dad. How do we fight
infrasound?”

“Use another sound to cancel it out.”

“Ahh…” Both women said.

Ahlon threw a fractal laser spell at them,
using the sign of two fingers in his eyes and pointing to the
target, Ralf.

He pushed Nova away to safety. Leandra ducked
to the side

in time. But her father was hit. He dropped
to the ground, bleeding from his stomach. Thinking the worst, Nova
ran over to hug her father one last time. But he wasn’t ready to
give up. He threw his arm out casting a small asteroid at Ahlon,
who hit the wall hard and smacked his head.