Total pages in book: 204
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 193124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 966(@200wpm)___ 772(@250wpm)___ 644(@300wpm)
Twenty-Six
Unexpected Travel.
The sunlight that slants in through above hits a collection of black spikes, and as the illumination is refracted up and into my eyes, it’s like a rainbow at midnight, all the colors that exist flowing through ribbons of dense darkness.
I’ve never seen anything like it.
Drawn by the iridescent display, I go to touch what turn out to be crystals—and the pad of my finger is sliced sure as if I’ve been bitten. As I jerk back my hand, my blood, red and vital, falls in drops that slip down in between the various levels and seem to be absorbed. Even though that can’t be right.
“This is not for me,” I hear myself say.
The box very nearly shuts on its own, and it’s a relief to flip that latch back into place. For good measure, I return the lot of it into the pack and resolve that I will never, ever touch the thing again.
And then I wait some more.
The compass ends up back in my hand. And then my thumb shifts over to the release at the top. Bracing myself for a revelation that is equally mysterious and beautiful, I trigger the mechanism and the top pops open to reveal—
A bog-standard white face with a black arrow and black directional demarcations around the outer edge of the circular face. Nothing special at all. It’s not even pointing in the right fashion, for the sun rises in the east and the tidy little pointed head indicates north as I pivot my palm toward the rays that pierce through the treetops.
At least it doesn’t try to draw blood.
It’s as I’m shutting the cover with disappointment that something stops me. I lean down, staring at the face more closely.
The compass is looking back at me.
That’s the only way I can describe the eerie feeling as my gaze becomes captivated by what is actually nothing much, visually speaking. I find myself searching the tidy black N, S, E and W, and the combined letters NE, SE, SW, NW—
Both the hand and the directional markers begin to spin, slowly at first, then faster and faster, and warmth comes with the movement—
The black of the tempered steel changes to red, as if it’s gotten hot as a horseshoe newly from the forge.
“Magic…” I whisper as I trail my fingertips over the glass.
Folktales have described the force that used to weave through everything on Anathos, and hushed voices have speculated over what the Dark King harvested and corrupted for his evil ways. And indeed, books have recorded both the history and the embellishment of what actually happened. But I’ve never actually seen any magic outside of the Fulcrum—my strange dances with death notwithstanding.
Maybe not all of the sacred force is in that swirling barrier, after all?
Abruptly, an image of the black bands of contamination and the floating black snow comes to mind, and I think of the root of all evil and his army of demons—
A subtle pull registers on my right side, as if my arm is being tugged. I even jerk my head up, expecting to see Merc hauling me to my feet. I’m alone. And as soon as I look back down at the compass’s face, the spinning intensifies until—
POP!
The vortex claims me and the world disappears. My only anchor becomes the compass face, and it’s no longer standard at all. The simple letters on the outer rim are multiplying, and then they swirl off the instrument, lifting up such that the optical illusion becomes not alphabetical, but … linear? Lines, lots of lines, now, that twist in and stretch out, to form a jagged pattern that closes in on itself.
Anathos. It’s the pattern that is etched on the front cover.
And beneath the mirage, the now-red directional arm stops.
Tilting forward, I look down through the map until a dot in its center lines up with the anchor for the directional arm … and a shiver goes through me. Just as I could pick out my village on the etching, I find my position.
And it’s where the arrow is pointing to.
Except it doesn’t stay there. As a vibration shimmers into my palm, the red arm slowly swings in a southerly direction.
Until it stops.
On the face of the compass, the original black letters reappear. Dead south. The arm is pointing … directly downward.
At the Kingdom of the South.
The journey Mr. Lewis presented me with—
The swirling returns, the flow churning in the opposite direction. Instantly, the magical map disintegrates, the lines are sucked back into the face, and the heat as well disseminates. Another pop! sounds somewhere in my head, and I gasp as scents of the forest fill my senses once again—
Something has changed, and alarm rings in my chest.
I’m still in the glen of trees, except I’m no longer sitting on the ground. I’m up on my feet, and a moment of pure panic has me whirling around—