Ashley crossed her arms over her chest and tapped her foot on the ground. Another life-or-death decision. Should she go with Walter or not? Her mother would be able to take care of herself, wouldn’t she? Still, Arramos seemed to have a lot more power than any other dragon, so who could tell what he might do to her? But Walter could run into all sorts of trouble, even with Excalibur. He wasn’t exactly a superstar swordsman yet, and could he take care of Karen by himself? Wouldn’t Karen feel better with her adoptive sister nearby?
Finally, Ashley took a deep breath and touched Thigocia’s wing. “Mother, I’d better go with Walter. You understand, don’t you?”
“Of course I understand, but where will you go after you get Karen, and how will I find you again?”
Ashley leaned close to her mother’s ear and whispered so quietly, she could barely hear her own words. “I’m not sure, but if we’re not here when you come back, go to the Bannisters’ house and find Larry. I’ll stay in touch with him through my tooth transmitter.”
Walter joined the huddle. “Don’t forget. I have a cell phone in my pocket. I don’t know what kind of signal we’ll have, but it should work once we’re back up here.”
A large tear dripped from Thigocia’s eye and fell to the ground, a line of vapor rising in its wake. “Take care, my daughter. Losing you again would be more than I could bear.”
Ashley reached into her pocket for her tissue and clenched it tightly. Her voice trembled. “Don’t worry,” she said, patting Walter on the back. “I have a warrior with me.”
Unfurling her wings, Thigocia turned back to Arramos. “You have my compliance. Before we depart, tell us about this great danger you mentioned.”
The male dragon’s eyes widened. Tiny dark circles formed at the center of his red pupils. “An ancient enemy is plotting to merge Heaven and Earth, which will likely bring the most terrible cataclysm the world has ever seen. He is crafty and powerful, and humans will be unable to stop him, so we dragons must go to battle against him before we can take our place as global peacemakers.”
Thigocia nodded. “Lead on, Arramos, if that is your real name. If your word is true, there is no reason to delay. If it is false, then I want to learn of your treachery as soon as possible while keeping you in my targeting sites.”
“O ye of little faith,” Arramos growled. “Soon you will learn the truth.” He beat his wings and lifted off the ground.
As the two dragons rose toward the low-lying clouds, Ashley and Walter gazed at their sleek, graceful forms. “Think he’s telling the truth?”
“About Roxil or about the so-called danger?”
“Either one.” Walter’s eyes stayed focused on the dragons as they shrank in the distance. “That Heaven and Earth merger sounds pretty drastic.”
“The Roxil story could be true,” she said, “but the Heaven thing is too far-fetched to believe. Even if Heaven exists, you can’t lasso it and pull it down from the sky.”
“Good point.”
Ashley picked up the duffle bag and checked inside for her photometer. Yes, she had put it next to her nearly empty bottle of water. “You know, I still can’t get over it.”
Walter shifted his gaze to Ashley. “Can’t get over what?”
“Well …” She pushed her toe into the soft turf. “It’s kind of hard to explain, so maybe we’d better get going. Karen’s waiting.”
Walter took a step down into the stairwell. “Give it a try while we’re going down. I’ll listen.” He turned and marched into the dim passage.
Ashley followed, hurrying to keep up with his quick pace. “I guess …” She paused as she tried not to let her voice bounce with her body. “I guess I feel kind of freakish. I can’t get over the fact that I’m the daughter of a dragon.”
“Actually,” Walter said as he withdrew Excalibur from his scabbard, “I’d be surprised if you weren’t.”
“What?” Ashley jumped down two steps at a time to catch up. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Walter stopped and turned. “Uh … It means you’re strong and brave, I guess. Isn’t that true of dragons?”
The light from the land above faded away, leaving them with only Excalibur’s delicate white glow. She set a hand on her hip, trying to read his expression, but shadows veiled his face. “Are you sure that’s what you meant?”
“Not a hundred percent.” He moved the sword, allowing the blade to cast its glow over their faces. His eyes gleamed. “Why do you ask?”
“Because you joke around a lot.” Ashley shifted uneasily from side to side as she tried to avoid his piercing gaze. “I’m putting my life in your hands now, so please cut out the jokes for a while. I need to trust every word you say.”
Surrounded by the dimness of the underground cavern, Sapphira stepped up to the column of light, close enough to feel a gentle tingling. Swirling eddies of white radiance spun away from the tall cylinder and kissed her cheek, raising goose bumps all across her arms. Excitement spiked the chill. It was time once again to leave her abode in the depths of Hades and pass through the dimensional portal to the world of the living, but this time in the company of a dragon and the human son of dragons. She smiled at the thought. Now that Jehovah had infused her with internal fire, Hades could never feel like home.
She turned toward her companions, one dragon and one human, and spread out her arms. Tiny flames rose from her fingertips, her emotions igniting her gift of fire making. The sparking tongues of yellow and blue raised an odor of sulfur, but it quickly burned away. “Come closer,” she said. “We probably can’t all fit in the portal, but maybe I can spread out its light and envelop you.”
Behind the tawny dragon, dozens of lanterns lined the exterior of a colossal, cylindrical building, framing her huge scaly body. The structure, the foundation floor of the ancient Tower of Babel, rose high into the upper reaches of the enormous cavern, scraping by one of the longer stalactites and disappearing into the darkness above.
Roxil swung her spine-covered tail forward and shuffled to the swirling portal, grumbling as she lowered her head to Sapphira’s level. “I don’t like the idea of just popping out in the modern world. I doubt that humans will take too kindly to seeing someone like me appear out of nowhere.”
“That’s for sure.” Gabriel spread out both his human arms and his dragonlike wings. “I don’t think anyone’s going to believe that I’m an endangered bat species, either.”
Sapphira touched a dagger tucked under Gabriel’s belt. “I’m kind of nervous about taking that. It was Morgan’s.”
“I grabbed it while we were running in Dragons’ Rest, so I didn’t have time to get a look at it.” He pulled it out and lifted it close to his eyes. “Merlin told me there’s something special about Morgan’s dagger.” He pressed his fingertip on the blade. “There! See? The shape of a cross in the stone’s crystalline structure. It’s staurolite.”
“Staurolite? What does that mean?”
“It’s powerful and mysterious. Merlin said that when this dagger is used for evil, only God can reverse its damage, but when it’s used for good, even its victims can receive mercy.” He tucked it back between his belt and trousers. “I never really understood what he meant by that, but it might come in handy wherever we’re going.”
“Wherever we’re going,” Roxil repeated. She brought her snout so close, Sapphira could feel the hot breath on her cheeks. “Do you know where we’re going?” Roxil asked with a challenging tone. “Do you have a plan for finding my father?”
“Cool it, Sis!” Gabriel reached over and shoved Roxil’s head away. “If I know Sapphira, she’s got everything covered.” He turned to Sapphira, his eyebrows raised. “You do have everything covered, don’t you?”
Sapphira tried to keep her gaze fixed on Gabriel, but out of the corner of her eye, she could see Roxil’s red pupils blazing. “Uh, well, I’m not really sure where we’ll come out, but I think we’ll show up wherever we need to be. That’s w
hat happened the last time I went through. I showed up inside the rubellite gateway between Dragons’ Rest and the world of the living, exactly at the right time to help Billy and Bonnie get into Dragons’ Rest.”
“So this is a random jump into space,” Roxil growled. “You don’t know if we will come out freezing on a mountaintop or drowning at the bottom of an ocean, do you?”
Sapphira frowned at Roxil. “Look around you!” She nodded toward the huge building behind them. “Jehovah used you dragons to make that museum drop right into this dimension, giving me scrolls for learning, fuel to keep me warm, rich soil for growing the tree that kept me from starving, and a portal to the outside world that helped me save lives.” She pointed at the ground, her finger now on fire. “I lived in this hole for thousands of years, sometimes alone for centuries, and, yes, I doubted. I cried. I was so desperate I wanted to die. But Jehovah kept me here for a purpose, and I couldn’t see it until exactly the right time. But it was perfect. I was able to help save Billy, Bonnie, and the faithful dragons. Jehovah was even merciful enough to use me to save a faithless dragon.” She extended her blazing finger toward Roxil. “You.”
Roxil backed away a step but said nothing.
“Maybe I can help a faithless dragon see the light.” Sapphira waved her hand at the portal column and shouted. “Expand!”
The column rolled out into a bright screen, and the light particles scattered to reveal two dragons standing close to a teenaged boy and two girls, one a young redhead and the other a taller, older teen. They seemed to be on a grassy field, and the distant mountaintops indicated that they, too, were at a high elevation.
“Mother!” Roxil called out. “The female dragon is my mother!”
“Our mother,” Gabriel corrected. “Do you recognize the male?”
Roxil moved closer to the screen. “It is Arramos. He is Makaidos’s father and my grandfather. He is the first of the dragons and the greatest.” Roxil turned back to Sapphira. “If we go through the portal, is this our destination?”
“I believe so,” Sapphira replied. “At least that’s how it worked last time.”
“Then let us make haste! There is no reason to delay!”
Gabriel patted Roxil on the neck. “So seeing is believing, huh? I guess you”
“Don’t make sport of me with your sarcasm!” Roxil reared back, ribbons of flame spewing from her nostrils. “You might be my brother, as you claim, but to me you look like a human—a two-legged vermin!”
Gabriel stumbled backwards, but Sapphira caught him. At that moment, the younger girl on the screen disappeared into a hole. The portal flashed. A new image appeared, replacing the mountaintop view. A man standing on rocky ground pulled a thin golden cord held by a dark-winged humanoid who crouched just beyond a narrow fissure only a few feet away.
Sapphira walked slowly toward the screen, pointing. “I know him! That’s Mardon, one of my old masters!”
As Mardon strained against the cord, the fissure thinned until it vanished. The portal screen exploded, sending thousands of miniature tornadoes of light spinning across the chamber. Dozens of sparkling eddies covered Roxil and Gabriel, consuming them as they buzzed through their bodies. Every inch of flesh and scales transformed into light, pulsing and twinkling. Within seconds, the eddies vanished, leaving the radiant outlines of a dragon and a winged boy.
Breathless, Sapphira reached for Gabriel, but her arm passed right through his shoulder. “What happened?” She tried to hold his phantasmic hand. “Can you talk?”
His lips moved, but no sound came out.
“Can you hear me?” she asked.
He nodded. A radiant stream twinkled under his eye.
Sapphira tried to wipe his tear, but it was no use. This poor boy had only recently escaped being trapped in a phantom state, but now he had lost his physical form once again. She tried to hear his thoughts, like she once did when he was first transluminated back in England, but nothing came through.
She stepped around Gabriel and tiptoed up to Roxil. “Uh, Roxil, I assume you can hear me, too, right?”
The dragon nodded. She opened her mouth as if trying to speak, but only a few white sparks dribbled out. Her pulsing outline made her expression hard to read, but she seemed frightened, more of a vulnerable appearance than her usual tough demeanor.
Sapphira raised her hand and tried to pat Roxil on her neck. “Don’t worry. I’ll try to figure out what happened. Mardon’s obviously up to something, but I can’t begin to guess what we saw on the screen.”
She looked back at the spot on the floor where the portal column had been, now dark. What could possibly make the path to the world of the living vanish like that? It was almost as if Mardon somehow intentionally moved the interdimensional passageway. But why?
She snapped her fingers. Maybe that was it! She dug her hand into her jeans pocket and withdrew the candy-bar-sized timer she had taken from the mobility room years ago. The digital counter read “0001.”
Sapphira rubbed her chin. It was so close, maybe this explosion was the first step in awakening the giants, and Mardon was finally making his move to bring them to the world of the living. Maybe somehow they had already been transported to Earth’s dimension, which would explain Roxil’s and Gabriel’s change to an energy state. Roxil had been killed centuries ago and was now an escapee from Dragons’ Rest, so she had no living, physical body, while Gabriel only regained his body during his time in Dragons’ Rest or one of the Circles of Seven.
Snatching up a lantern, she strode to the chamber’s exit. “If you want to come with me, please hurry. I have a hunch.” Without looking at the lantern, she said, “Ignite.” The wick burst into flames.
As the light brightened, she picked up her pace. Slapping her bare feet against the stone floor, she dashed through the familiar underground corridors that led to the mobility room, the chamber where Mardon trained the Nephilim to walk and gain strength.
She leaped over the bones of the long-dead Nephilim carcasses that lay strewn next to the mobility room’s entrance, then burst inside. Marching along the row of growth chambers, she eyed the giants suspended within the recessed cavities in the wall.
She whistled at the sight of these massive men, still amazing, though she had seen them countless times. The process that put them in these growth chambers seemed more miraculous than scientific. How could hulking giants begin as tiny humanoid plants, engineered from the genetic material of fallen angels? Who could have designed a scheme that would uproot those plants at a young age and place them into magnetic fields that suspended them in midair until their limbs were strong enough for walking? Why would anyone want to take so many years to train them as mighty soldiers?
And now they slept, awaiting a slumber-ending call that Mardon had programmed long ago. The digital counter embedded in the rock underneath each growth chamber carried the same “0001” reading as the counter Sapphira had taken more than eight decades earlier from under Yereq, the spawn she had nurtured as a seedling until he was ready for mobility.
She stopped in front of Yereq and gazed at his stern, bearded face. Although he was asleep, he seemed anxious, as if suffering through a bad dream. Even as a seedling, he had often dreamed, his tiny green face twitching and frowning, and she would wake him up with a soothing song. But those days were only a memory.
Although they had enjoyed a caring relationship when he was a mere spawn, the last time she had seen him awake, he scowled at her, having been trained in hatred by Morgan in preparation for his role as lead Naphil, the general of her conquering army.
With Morgan’s death, however, and Mardon’s disappearance, who could tell what was in store for him? Once the counter ticked to zero, would Mardon return from the strange precipice they had seen and somehow lead the Nephilim to the upper lands in the world of the living?
She longed to replay Yereq’s days of innocence, to sing something sweet that would free him from this never-ending nightm
are. But could it possibly help? Could her voice somehow call him back to wakefulness, back to a time when his heart wasn’t cold? A song played in her mind, one of the few lighthearted melodies that Naamah, her slave-driving mistress, had taught her centuries ago. Stepping closer to Yereq, she let it emerge from her lips, soft and sweet.
’Tis time to rise my verdant child
And greet the day so warm and mild.
So sing with me, and we will dance
To show the world our sweet romance.
When Sapphira finished, she lifted the lantern to watch Yereq’s eyelids. They twitched again. His lips moved as if ready to speak. Suddenly, he leaned forward and fell out of his chamber, crumpling to the floor facedown.
Sapphira leaped to his side. “Yereq! Are you all right?” Pushing with all her might, she tried to turn him over, but he was too heavy. She sat down and shoved his body with both feet until he finally flopped onto his back.
She laid her ear against his chest. No breathing. No heartbeat. Pushing his chest with her doubled fists, she cried out, “Yereq! Wake up!”
No response.
Pressing her ear down again, she listened. Still no heartbeat. She opened his jaw and blew into his mouth, but her feeble breaths barely inflated his lungs. Again and again she tried to resuscitate him, but his body was so big and solid, and she was so small, she felt like a mouse pushing an elephant.
Finally, she climbed on his chest and jumped up and down, but after several attempts with no success, she gave up and sprawled over his body. “Oh, Yereq! I’m so sorry! My song woke you, but it was too early. Why couldn’t I have waited? Maybe without Morgan around, I could have turned your heart back to love!”
She gazed at his lifeless face, dirty and scraped from his fall to the mobility room floor. Looking up at Roxil’s and Gabriel’s floating energy forms, she wiped her eyes. “I have to go to the springs.” She climbed off Yereq and ran to the exit, lighting her way with a small flame in her palm.