Then it shot forward.
It sailed through the air, its horrible white eyes widening and its front legs extending, sharp as blades. As the monster came down, a strange pulse of energy sizzled through the air. The creature’s limbs went limp as it tumbled toward the ground. Anna and I stepped to either side, and the creature crashed between us, rolling on the fungus. Its body lay immobile.
Anna didn’t wait. She plunged her blade deep into the creature’s long, gray neck, where its chitin-like armor didn’t protect it. As the blade entered, the thing gave a sharp hiss. Anna twisted the blade and withdrew it, the metal covered in a purple slime so dark that it could almost be called black. The creature gave a final quiver before settling into stillness.
I turned back to the tree. Its side had been gnawed on, and from the puncture silvery sap spilled out, covering the fungus below.
“Where did that thing come from?” Anna asked.
I shook my head. The answers to that question were too horrifying to consider. Somehow, the Radaskim had penetrated the Elekai home. If there was one of those things, there could be more.
“We need to find the Wanderer,” I said.
We came close to the tree and circled around its wide trunk. On the other side lay a cliff, falling into darkness. We had come to the end of the forest. If the Wanderer wasn’t here…
Anna pointed. “There!”
A human body, covered in a light brown cloak, lay not far off, still. I ran forward, suppressing my desire to scream.
“No…”
I knelt beside the Wanderer, touching his shoulder.
Slowly, he stirred. He wasn’t dead. Not yet.
His eyes opened, completely white. It was hard to read them, but I could tell he was in pain. From the way he held his torso, it wasn’t hard to see why. Blood stained the front of his robe, soaking between his fingers.
“Alex…” he said, voice raspy. “They came. We fought them above, but they…”
The Wanderer coughed — that action must have sent him into horrible pain.
“Don’t speak,” I said. “We’ll get you to the lake.”
The Wander gave a slow, weak nod.
“Come on,” I said to Anna. “We need to carry him.”
She sheathed her katana, and helped me lift the Wanderer. He wasn’t too heavy. He closed his eyes, and though he continued to hold his torso, the red still leaked out. Such a wound would take hours to bleed out, but the poison might work faster. If we had arrived a little later, it might have been too late.
We all but ran. We found the path and ran up the twisting incline. The Wanderer’s eyes were shut, and his body had stiffened.
Our breaths came out heavy, and my heart pounded at the exertion. I pushed myself beyond what I thought possible. I kept my eye out for additional threats, but the forest was silent and empty. If there were more monsters, they weren’t here.
Five minutes later, we crested the final incline, finding the pink ichor of the lake glittering ahead. The dragons still lay there, bathing. Anna and I ran forward, the ichor accepting as we plunged into it.
The Wanderer fell face first, and immediately sunk below the liquid’s surface, as if the ichor itself recognized the need for haste. The Wanderer sunk further into the depths, falling downward and away. He was getting quite distant, now, veering toward the center of the pool. At last, he did reach the center, near the leg of a slumbering dragon. There, his movement ceased. His form showed wavy from the liquid in between.
Anna and I had watched in silence for about thirty seconds, when the liquid began to hollow out in the center, forming a depression in the surface of the pool. The depression deepened and widened, and an emanating wave pushed Anna and me back to the shoreline. The ichor continued to rise, even as the center of the pool emptied. Anna and I scrambled onshore. The Wanderer was down there. The center of the lake had emptied of all ichor, and it whirled, pushed back by some unseen force.
I could see the Wanderer standing there, his face shrouded within his cowl. He lifted one arm, as if in command. A line formed in the water between us and the Wanderer, and from that line, the water parted, forming a corridor.
The dragon nearby came out of his sleep, looking down at his master with white eyes. The dragon’s positioning had not changed; the ichor had remained around him, not wanting to disturb his rest.
The path from us to the Wanderer had been fully carved from the lake. Walls of pink ichor rose on either side, as if frozen in time. At the end of this narrow path, the Wanderer beckoned us to come forward with a single hand.
“Does he really want us to…?” Anna asked.
“Come on.”
I grabbed her hand, and we walked into the canyon. The lakebed sloped down to where the Wanderer waited, his face masked in shadow.
I felt as if I were approaching a god. Maybe I was.
As we neared, the shadow no longer covered his face.
At last, we stood before him. He wore a small smile, and there was no evidence of his wound from before.
Anna and I would have our meeting with the Wanderer.
Chapter 18
No one said anything for a long while. The Wanderer’s eyes glowed white within his cowl.
He was the first to speak.
“There is little time to speak, Alex. We both know the end is near. As you might have guessed, the Elekai were attacked. This morning, we tried to fly to Los Angeles. But Askala guessed our intent. She caught us on the open fields, and many Elekai fell. Almost all the Elekai rest in the pool.”
“What about Askal?” I asked.
“Yes, he is here, too,” the Wanderer said. “I suppose in one of the further caverns.”
“How did that…thing…get in here?” Anna asked.
“It was not only from above that we were attacked,” the Wanderer said. “Several burrowers found their way into the caverns. That one disturbed my meditation in the Sacred Grove.”
I thought “disturbed” was too light a word for what the Wanderer had suffered.
“How long will it take for the dragons to heal?” I asked.
“For some, not long at all,” the Wanderer said. “As for the rest…they will be ready in time for the final battle. That is, if there is a final battle to be fought. Los Angeles must be saved first, but I dare not let the Elekai fly there. They will not be ready.”
“Then how are we going to save the city?” Anna asked. “That’s why we came.”
The Wanderer looked at her with solemn eyes. “I will come with you. With luck, I may be able to turn the tide.”
“What?” Anna asked. “How?”
“You’re riding on our spaceship?” I asked.
Somehow, it was hard to imagine the Wanderer doing that.
“Yes,” he said. “I’d rather fly on a dragon, but there isn’t time for that.”
The Wanderer was probably the only person who could honestly say that.
“But…how are you going to stop the Radaskim?” Anna asked. “It’s just you, and there are thousands of them.”
“There is only one way, for which I must pay the ultimate price. I must release the hidden power of the Elekai. It is the only chance, I think, to save the city.”
Hidden power? The ultimate price?
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Are you…”
The Wanderer’s eyes seemed to answer the question that I left unasked.
Whatever the Wanderer had planned, it would cost him his life.
“The Releasing…it involves my giving up my power. It will allow me to directly control the Radaskim dragons. I’m unsure how long it will last, or even if it will work. It’s the only chance I see.”