Read City of the End: The Underwater City, Book 4: An Old Enemy Page 6
underneath my shoes. I had no answers. What could have crushed only the back of the council building? I was about to tell Ian that I didn’t know when the sounds underneath my feet suddenly changed.
I looked down. My feet had landed in a small puddle of water. I looked up, following the puddle with my eyes and saw that the ruined section of the building had puddles of water throughout it.
“Water?” Ian asked, leaning over and touching it with his fingertips to make sure, “That’s odd.”
“No scorch marks,” I mumbled, “But water. This has to be where the portal opened.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah. It must have been a massive portal. I mean, just giant. It crushed this half of the building, after all. The portal opened and everyone was almost sucked inside.”
“Yeah, but why water? What is it from?” Ian asked.
I crouched and ran my fingers over one of the puddles. My mind was trying to work through the puzzle. It felt as if I had the answer but it was just out of my reach. Marketh had created a portal so large, my entire city was sucked inside of it. Where could he have taken them that was secluded and also would have resulted in creating these puddles?
“A water temple.” I said suddenly.
Ian frowned, “A water temple?”
“That’s right. A water temple. Having them underwater would mean they were hidden. It would mean it would be harder to find them. That’s why there are these puddles instead of scorch marks.”
“A water temple? I thought these were just stories.” Ian exclaimed.
“Most of the stories are true.” I said with a sigh, thinking of the Ender Dragon I had fought previously.
“So, what now? How do we find a water temple? The oceans are large. There really isn’t a way to narrow the search down.”
“Look for portal fragments. If we can find even just one, we can toss it in the portal we came through. That would change where the portal will take us when we step through it.”
“Wait, you’re just going to barge into the water temple? We don’t know what will be on the other end.”
“Nothing good. But Marketh won’t be expecting me. He thinks he covered his tracks perfectly but we are so close to figuring it out. If you don’t want to come along, go back to the king. But I’m doing this.”
Ian groaned and sighed, “No. No, I’m coming. I mean, I am going to regret this but I’ll come along with you.”
“Great. Come on. Let’s try to find a portal piece.”
That ended up being easier said than done. We combed through the wreckage of the building but didn’t find anything that was a portal piece. Had Marketh made sure to have his skeletons clear up the portal pieces? A portal of this size would be full of all sorts of energy. Fragments would break off all the time.
Marketh had tried a similar trick the last time he had been focused on controlling the world. He had opened up an incredibly large portal in the End with the hopes of sending Ender Men and the Ender Dragon through it. Afterwards, we had spent ages cleaning up fragments from the portal.
“They are little black looking rocks.” I said for the millionth time, trying not to get frustrated.
“Lana, I know. I’m looking. Doesn’t help that the stones you guys build with look just like the portal fragments.” Ian grumbled, probably regretting wanting to come along.
After another hour of this, Ian finally stood up and shook his head, “We need to take a break.” When I started to protest, he shook his head again, “Lana. Come on. You need to rest. You’re over thinking this and you need to relax.”
He was right even though I didn’t want to admit it. I stood up and we left the council building. We went back to my own house. After what had happened a year ago, Gareth had made sure we were out of the orphanage and had our own places to live. It was just a reminder how Josh was gone with the rest of the city.
Ian and I were both quiet. I was too tired to talk much. Afterwards, Ian got some blankets and pillows and curled up on the floor in a bed he had made. I should be sleeping too but instead I am writing in here.
I can’t help but feel frustrated. I know that Marketh has taken the people to a water temple. It makes sense and matches up with the water on the floor and the fact he’d want to hide everyone in a large area. Even so, how am I supposed to get there if I can’t find a fragment of the portal?
Had Marketh really gotten all of the portal pieces? Ian is right. The portal pieces look exactly like the rocks we used to build down here.
Wait…
Day 6
I shook Ian awake. He was totally out of it and was staring at me as if I had lost my mind.
“I figured it out.” I said quickly and then took off out of the house.
“Lana, hold up!” Ian said, stumbling to his feet and rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
I couldn’t wait though. I had figured it out! If I had only realized what Ian had said earlier about the rocks, I would have figured it out over an hour ago. I took off and run down the empty streets and back into the council building.
“Lana! Geez, you can run fast!” Ian said, panting.
“Yeah, thanks to Josh.” I said and he just looked at me in confusion.
I crouched back down and moved some rubble out of the way. When Ian had said the rocks and portal fragments looked similar, it hadn’t clicked. Now, however, it did. This entire time we had been looking at what we had thought were rocks of the building. But it had been portal fragments this entire time!
I snatched up a handful of the fragments and quickly explained what was going on to Ian. His eyes widened in excitement as we took off out of the council building and back towards the portal we had come through.
Once we were standing in front of it, I looked over at him and asked, “Are you ready? As soon as I throw these pieces in, we have to jump through. We have no idea what we are going to be jumping into.”
“Knowing our luck, we’ll land right in the middle of the ocean.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time.” I grumbled, remembering the first time Marketh had sent me through a portal.
“Alright. Let’s do this.” Ian nodded.
I tossed the pieces into the portal. It shimmered and glowed brightly before settling back into its normal purple color. I took a step forward but Ian pulled me backwards.
“Let me go first. Just in case.”
“Are you sure?”
He nodded and then went over to the portal. Then he stepped through it and was gone. I stared at the shimmering portal and held my breath – just in case I landed underwater.
I had no idea where I was going to end up but I knew I needed to go through here. I needed to find my people, Josh, John and Ellie. Whatever Marketh was planning, I would stop him again.