Return To Now
Book Two:
The Amphibian Portal
Brian Shepp
Copyright Brian Shepp, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4657-7717-1
Also available at:
Return to Now, Book 1: The Infant Prince
Return to Now, Book 3: Revolution in Anjhélius
Coming soon: Return to Now, Book 4: The Road to Kra’akal
Smashwords Edition, License Notes
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Author’s Note:
Return to Now has been conceived as a single, epic story, serialized into volumes. So, I highly encourage you to begin your experience in the Now with:
Return to Now, Book 1: The Infant Prince
and then follow the story as it unfolds in this and subsequent volumes.
Read Ravenously!
Brian Shepp
Chapter 25 - Bike Path
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The city was farther away than it had looked from the top of the hill, and by noon, they were still traveling. To anyone who saw Jack zoom past on his bike, he looked like just a boy and his white dog. No one would have seen the little orange wyvern tracing along above them. And little could anyone have guessed their quest.
In one strange and impossible day, Jack had grown to trust Tija’l more than anyone else in his life, perhaps more than he should. Now that he had time to think about it while he biked, he couldn’t figure out exactly why. Maybe it was the sincerity with which the weird kid spoke the ridiculous.
“You must follow me to another world,” Tija’l had insisted, “because it is your world, too.”
And of course, there was that shift thing. Jack glanced back to the wire basket he’d strapped to the bike. The white fox looked back up at him with those intense amber eyes. A kid who could turn into a fox. That was pretty cool. What would he change into, Jack pondered, if he could do that? Maybe a jaguar. Or an eagle so he could fly.
The bike path had been downhill, steep at first, then gentle as they traced alongside the river. It had leveled off a while ago, and Jack felt the ache building in his legs from constantly pumping the pedals. From the basket, Tija’l could still see black birds crisscrossing the skies far behind them, weaving their shadows across Shady Acres. He and Orange were on high alert; his vigilance would not fail him this time.
For most of its length, the river was nothing more than a man-made, cement groove gouged into the landscape to control the flow of water. Along the floor of the valley, a large freeway angled in on the other side of the path. All that separated the bike from the massive trucks roaring past twenty feet to the right was a rippling chain-link fence.
Now, as the river and freeway took a sweeping turn to the right, aiming directly toward the hazy outline of the city in the distance, the landscape changed. The river began to teem with life. Underground springs fed into the rushing water here, and had since before recorded history. The cement had proved no match and cracked. Plants had sprouted in the breaks and caught small eddies of mud in their wake.
Over the years, the little sprouts had grown to the level of trees, reaching up until they cast their shadow across the freeway thundering alongside. The silt had built up into islands. Wild bamboo, reeds, and papyrus flourished, and an entire ecosystem had burst to life. Jack could feel the cooling breeze and the oxygen flowing on one side of his face as surely as he was buffeted by the heat and filth on the other.
“The entryway we seek is close,” said Tija’l.
“How do you know?”
“It smells like it,” the fox explained, sniffing the air. “There’s magic here.”
“I think that’s just exhaust.”
At first, the fox-boy’s voice in Jack’s head had been confusing, almost like his own thoughts, only more demanding. By now, though, he recognized the voice, not just by the words Tija’l used and the things he said, but by the ‘sound’ of it, even though there was no real sound. He could picture the face of the boy Tija’l speaking, even when he was looking directly at Tija’l the fox.
“The enemy will be near, guarding the entryway,” Jack heard. “We should stop.”
“I need to take a break anyway,” Jack agreed, already braking to a halt. He swung himself off the bike and leaned it against the little fence.
Orange zipped off, making a beeline for the riverscape and insect snacks that awaited her there. In the blink of an eye, Tija’l became the white haired kid again. One person racing past on the freeway was looking at them when it happened, but since what he saw didn’t make sense, his brain decided not to see it.
The boys shimmied down the steep cement slope to the river’s edge and sat. The main river flowed on the other side of an island ten feet from the shore. On this side, the water was a mere trickling. Plants grew thick, and ducks fed from the slime along the bottom. The boys chewed on candy bars and stared out at the river.
Earlier, Jack had dumped half of his savings into a group of vending machines, so his backpack was stocked with brightly wrapped snacks and bottles of artificially colored high-fructose corn syrup. Not the healthiest food, he thought as he chewed. His mother would be horrified.
“Things will get better...”
He could almost hear her speaking the words from her note. He had discovered the piece of paper wrapped around a tangerine in his lunch bag, and by now, he had it memorized.
Jack,
I know it’s been hard lately.
But we’ll get through this. Together.
Trust me, things will get better.
We’ll go to the movies this weekend, whatever movie you want.
Just you and I. Sound good?
Can’t wait for our “date.”
I love you very much.
Mom
He didn’t cry, not exactly. But his eyes felt like they were being squeezed and pushed from behind. He closed them and covered his face with his hands. A lump in his throat made it hard to swallow, as though the the words he might never get a chance to say to her were stuck in his windpipe.
He would be back, he told himself, once he was done with this business. Done with what, exactly, though? And when? He had so many questions. All he really knew was that he felt connected, somehow, to his life for the first time in a while. He felt like he might actually have a purpose. Wherever the Now was, and whomever these people were, they seemed to need his help. Mom would be proud of him, he tried to convince himself. If only there was some way of letting her know he was all right.
Then again, he might not be all right. Tija’l had only vaguely described the dangers that awaited. All would be explained once they arrived, the kid had assured him more than once. Jack had the feeling there was something he wasn’t saying, probably to keep from frightening him into running back home. But the imaginary monsters that not knowing created were growing more ominous by the minute.
If he wasn’t back by this weekend, would his mom go to the movies by herself? Would she sit in the theater and cry, trying to think of what she had done to make her son run away?
“What am I doing?” he thought.
“Right now, or in general?” Tija’l responded.
“What?”
“You asked what you’re doing?”
“Did I say that out loud?”
“I don’t know,” Tija’l admitted.
“I mean,” Jack tried to explain, “I’m running away from home. I didn’t even tell my mom.”
She will blame herself, he despaired
“What would you have said?”
Jack sighed. “She wouldn’t have believed me.”
“You could have tried to convince her.”
“No. There’s no way.” He remembered what she had told him about Orange years ago: ‘You’re too old to have imaginary friends.’ She wouldn’t be able to believe. She couldn’t
“Perhaps not.”
“But I could have told her something,” Jack persisted. “How long will I have to be gone?”
Tija’l shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“But you must have some idea...”
Tija’l’s silence spoke for him. Jack sighed and leaned back against the incline, feeling the cool breeze from the river on his face.
“This is crazy,” he said.
“Yes,” Tija’l agreed. “It is.”
Jack looked over at the kid to see if he was being mocked. But Tija’l looked sad.
“If you had told me two months ago that I would be here, in the Beyond, with the exiled Prince of Now, pursued by korvidae, I would have called you crazy,” Tija’l sighed.
“Well, if I somehow told you that two months ago,” Jack reasoned, “then I would have already been wherever you were, so you wouldn’t have had to come get me in the first place.”
Tija’l looked down at his charge. “Now, that’s the most intelligent thing I’ve heard you say,” he said, smiling. Suddenly, his slightly pointed ears twitched forward as his eyes rolled back in his head.
“They’re coming.” Tija’l glanced around quickly. “Hide!”
“But--”
Tija’l had already shifted into fox and leapt halfway to the island. Jack heard scattered harsh cries coming from up river. He splashed through the shallow water and ducked into the trees on the island just as five crows emerged over the top of the bamboo. Peering up through the thick leaves, Jack held his breath as the birds flurried past.
Definitely glad that my sweatshirt’s the same color as the plants, he thought. If he had worn his red one, they would have seen him for sure. He pulled the hood over his his head. It had been such a simple decision this morning, which sweatshirt to wear, but it had just made all the difference.
Two crows circled back and wheeled around the bike he’d left up on the path, and Jack re-caught the breath he had just released. The birds discovered nothing of interest, though, and flew on, racing to convene with the others.
The fox poked his nose out from his hiding place, startling Jack who hadn’t known he was there. Even though his fur was white, Tija’l knew instinctively how to keep to the deeper shadows, using stillness as his camouflage.
“They are expanding their search,” he announced. “We have to hurry.”
“It’s a good thing we were already stopped,” Jack said. “There’s nowhere to hide on the path.”
Orange zipped down through the trees, then swept around, indicating the path with her head.
“Good. You scout ahead,” Tija’l agreed. “We’ll be right behind you.”
She sped away while the boys scrambled up the embankment. Tija’l jumped into the basket, and they started after her.
Chapter 26 - Graffiti
____________________
They biked past islands that stretched for nearly a mile down river. Through the trees and reeds, Jack caught glimpses of the opposite side of the river, a sheer cement wall covered with huge murals. Mostly, they were stylized letters - initials Jack assumed - of someone's name or gang, spray-painted with dynamic shapes and angles. Up ahead, the island grew wider, and towering bamboo flourished, obscuring an overpass that angled across the river.
A sudden flash of copper speeding toward him made Jack gasp. Orange fluttered frantically in front of his face.
“What is it?”
No time to explain, she dove for Jack’s left hand and nipped at his fingers.
“Hey!” he yelped and pulled his hand away. She dove onto the handlebar, pushing back, and the bike veered wildly toward the river. Before Jack could regain control, they launched off the path and careened down the steep embankment.
He could barely hear his own scream above the roar of the freeway.
The bike hit the bottom and slammed into the water. Tija’l was flung from the basket, twisted through the air, and landed on his feet like a cat. The bike barreled through the shallows, skidded sideways, then caught in the thick mud at the edge of the island and flipped over, depositing Jack unceremoniously into the undergrowth.
Orange was instantly by his side, buzzing around his head, urging him to move quickly as he retrieved his bike and pulled it under cover. Tija’l waited, crouching in human form in the deep shadows.
“I’ve never seen her this freaked out,” said Jack.”
“She must have seen something ahead.”
“Well,” Jack responded, more excited than afraid. “Let’s check it out.”
Tija’l sniffed the air. “It’s here.”
Leaving his bike hidden, Jack followed Tija’l as he wove deftly through the bamboo grove. Following the fox-boy’s lead, Jack was careful not to sway the stalks, like giant blades of grass as thick as signposts, and thus reveal their presence. Ahead, he could hear the low rumble of the overpass.
“Where the road crosses the river,” he remembered the sourceweaver saying in his dream.
As they approached the edge of the island, Tija’l dropped to the ground, and Jack mimicked. The boys shimmied forward on their stomachs through the reeds. Tija’l reached out, pulling the grass aside to see, and Jack watched his whole body go tense.
“Aléthia help us,” Tija’l muttered.
Holding his breath, Jack pulled himself forward on his elbows and edged the reeds aside.
The overpass ahead was lined with a hundred crows. Shoulder to shoulder, they perched on the railing, a black barrier, unnaturally still. And in the center, just above the massive concrete pylon that held up the road, hunched two of the giant black birds with tentacles instead of legs, the korvidae. Jack’s heart fell to his stomach like an elevator with a snapped cable, and landed somewhere deep in his gut.
“There’s a million of them out there,” he whispered.
“No. We would have no chance against a million,” Tija’l assured him. “By my estimate, there are slightly less than one hundred.”
“Oh, that’s all.” Jack rolled his eyes.
“I believe so. But they are stationed directly above the entryway.”
The korvidae twitched, restless and alert.
“What entryway? I don’t see anything.”
“You don’t see the giant red painting?” Tija’l asked, unsure how anyone could not see something so blatantly obvious.
Jack tore his eyes away from the guardians to study the graffiti on the pylon beneath them. Where the river reached the pole, it surged up, then washed around both sides. Just above the waterline, a blotch of strange symbols had been painted in crimson hues.
“What? The graffiti? Yeah, I see that.”
“Good,” Tija’l huffed. “I thought I was going to have to teach you how to see. That could take a while.”
Orange chirped demandingly above their heads.
“But Orange is right. We don’t have a while.”
“I was looking at the freaky birds,” Jack explained.
“Well, look at the painting. Look at it very closely.”
Jack pulled the reeds open further so that he could see with both eyes.
It’s really big, he thought, wondering how someone had climbed that far up on the pylon. They’re cool symbols, he noticed, narrowing his focus to see the details. The colors looked to be shining as though they were metallic. No, that’s just the painting, he realized. Streaks of white suggested reflections of the sun, black suggested shadow, creating the illusion that the shapes were bulging from the wall. They even seemed to pulse slowly with life in rhythm with Jack’s heartbeat.
“Do you see it now?”
“It’s really... beautiful,” Jack said, matching Tija’l’s whisper. The symbols really did seem to be moving, not just pulsing, but stretching now, changing, like vines growing.
“Is it--?”
“Don’t look away,” Tija’l insisted. “You’re starting to see through.”
“It’s moving, isn’t it?”
Tija’l didn’t need to answer; the painting was definitely animate now.
Unfortunately, the two korvidae who had sensed the magic of this place could also sense it squirming below them, and they rose to attention, their heads cocking back and forth. One with an indigo splotch on his breast launched from the overpass, veering back to clutch onto the pylon with all three tentacles. Thorns scraped against concrete, digging into place. Still flapping his wings for balance, the korvidai scrambled across the moving paint.
He tore at it in a rage, and chunks of concrete splashed to the river. He cawed repeatedly to the sky, and the hundred enslaved crows echoed his fury. The frightful sound mingled with the roar of the passing trucks like a demonic symphony, and the elevator holding Jack’s heart fell another floor.
“This can’t be real. There’s no way,” Jack muttered as he cringed back.
“No!” Tija’l warned. “Be careful what you choose to believe.”
“But it can’t be--”
Jack retreated to the cover of the thick bamboo.
“Some things depend upon your belief to exist at all,” Tija’l insisted, following him. “Once you’ve disbelieved something, it’s a lot more difficult to bring it back.”
Jack shook his head and held up his hand, trying to block what he had seen from his sight. His neck hurt again just remembering yesterday’s attack.
“But it’s impossible,” he pleaded.
And since it was impossible for the painting to move, it stopped.
The korvidai, however, kept scratching at the concrete until he realized that the magic had become still under his thorns. He remained perched sideways, directly on top of it. Paint and blood dripped from his tentacles. No one was going to get near the entryway if it was up to him.
As far as Jack could tell, it was up to him.
Chapter 27 - The Key
____________________
“You stopped believing in it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Jack defended himself. “Those damn birds are still there.”
“But the painting is frozen again.”
“That’s not my fault”
“Yes, in fact, it is!”
“Well, I didn’t know. I don’t know anything about this!” Jack sputtered. “It’s your fault for not telling me!”
“My fault? It’s all so obvious!”
“To you!”
Orange zipped between the boys and slapped them both across the face at the same time with her wings. They both turned to protest, but realized simultaneously that there were more important things to worry about than winning an argument. Jack forced himself to calm down.
“Why didn’t the birds go away if I stopped believing in them?” he asked.
“They are real. They don’t need your belief. But magic does.”
After a deep breath, Jack tried to explain in a more levelheaded tone.
“I didn’t stop believing in it. I don’t think I ever really started.”
“Thus, it’s just paint.”
“So what do we do now?”
Tija’l considered; there were no other options. “You’ll have to believe in it again,” he said.
“Okay. How do I do that?”
“How do you believe?” Tija’l sounded incredulous.
“Yes.”
“You are very strange, Jack.”
“As strange as they come, evidently.”
“Well, the first step in believing, I suppose, is to stop not believing.” Tija’l thought for a moment. “Consider that, despite all of your supposed knowledge to the contrary, it could be possible.”
“What could be possible?”
“Pretty much anything.”
“But this kind of thing doesn’t happen--”
“Do you know everything, Jack?” Tija’l interrupted.
“Well... no,” he conceded.
“Then there are things that you don’t know.”
“Sure.”
“A lot of things,” Tija’l concluded.
“Maybe.”
“Vast, overwhelming amounts of things that you have absolutely no idea about.”
“I wouldn’t say vast,” Jack stammered.
“If you don’t know everything,” Tija’l concluded, “Then you don’t know how much you don’t know.”
Jack thought for a second, sighed, and gave in. “I guess not.”
“So, compared to what you don’t know, what you do know is...” he searched for the right word, “insignificant.”
“Fine. I’m insignificant. That, I believe.”
“You’re not, or you wouldn’t have started to see through at all. Even the korvidae couldn’t do that. They had to wait for you.”
“So, you want me to believe that the graffiti is some sort of... what? A door?” Jack asked, still resisting.
“It is the entryway to the Portal path.”
Jack sighed. “Of course it is.”
“Stop believing that it isn’t,” Tija’l advised.
Jack took a deep breath and tried to open his mind. Why not? he thought and closed his eyes.
“No,” Tija’l chastised him immediately. “Keep your eyes open. Don’t close yourself off from what is right in front of you.”
As insulting as it seemed, Tija’l was right. There were a lot of things Jack didn’t know about; he knew that was true. On a very basic level, he sort of knew how blood cells and cell phones and electron microscopes worked. But he didn’t really know how they worked; he couldn’t build one himself. Then there were things like electricity or gravity which, evidently, even the experts didn’t know exactly how they worked. The scientists just had very precise measurements to prove that they did work, in precisely measurable ways.
Maybe, if he thought of this magic craziness as just another one of those things, it would be easier to believe.
“Wait!” he suddenly remembered, “I have the key.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out the stone carving of a tree frog. It shimmered blood-red in the sunlight.
Tija’l cocked his head to the side, then looked up at Jack, confused.
“That wizard guy in the dream gave it to me,” Jack explained.
“Jacqua’nar.”
“Yeah, him.”
“So, what now?” asked Tija’l.
“I don’t know.”
“Didn’t he tell you how to use it?”
“No. He just said ‘the key will know’,” Jack explained.
“Yeah,” Tija’l sighed, remembering the sourceweaver’s confounding ways, “he says things like that a lot.”
“But it’s just a rock. I can’t imagine how it’s going to help us.”
“That’s exactly the problem.”
“What is?”
“That you don’t seem to be able to imagine.”
Tija’l looked annoyed, and Jack hated feeling like he had disappointed his new friend.
“I’m sorry,” he mumbled.
“Sorry doesn’t help.”
Frustration at his own cowardice churned in Jack’s mind. It all seemed to be happening, he told himself. That should be enough. The sourceweaver Jacqua’nar had given Jack the frog in a dream, but the little carving was real. Jack could feel its weight in his hand, the chill of the stone against his palm. If it was both a dream and real, wasn’t that some sort of magic? Using logic to sort out the inherently illogical seemed, well, illogical at best. But there was no other conclusion. So, Jack decided to dump his skepticism for good. He simply decided to believe.
“Wuzzup,” the frog ribbited in a deep voice, startling both boys. Very much alive, the little amphibian explored its way up Jack’s wrist. The bulbous ends of its webbed fingers and toes felt sticky and wet. Then it sat there, like a frog.
“It’s alive,” Jack whispered.
“Apparently.”
“Wuzzup.” The frog’s protruding eyes rotated back and forth, staring at both of the boys in turn, as if waiting for something to happen.
“Wuzzup,” it ribbited again.
“What do we do now?”
“I don’t know,” admitted Tija’l. “Sometimes you just wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“I don’t know.”
Jack visualized the monster guarding the graffiti. “I hope we don’t have to touch it to the painting or something like that.”
“That would be problematic.”
A stone’s throw away, the korvidai shimmied up the pylon, smelling the air.
“Maybe we should lick it?” Jack suggested, remembering a tv show about people who licked poisonous frogs for some sort of drug.
“Uh, I don’t think so,” said Tija’l, clearly disgusted.
“I’m just trying to keep an open mind.”
“Well, certainly, but--”
“For verily I speaketh unto you: ‘a closed mind is like a dried up pond’.” The boys stared down at the little frog, mouths agape, and it continued. “‘For nothing therein can live until the rains come again.’ Thus speaketh the Lord. Can I get a ‘hallelujah’, my siblin’s?” The tree frog intoned like an evangelical preacher, elongating the syllables and half singing his words for emphasis. “Haaaa - leeeee - loooo--” His voice sung out as he rolled back his eyes and waved his flippers over his head.
“Shhh!” Jack tried to cover the little preacher with his hand, but the frog merely hopped up his arm.
“You cannot silence the word of the Lord!”
“Be quiet! Please!”
“The korvidae will hear you.”
Orange flew up into the bamboo and perched where she could keep an eye on the korvidae and their minions.
“Ah, yes,” the frog continued in a hushed tone, “for the world of the flesh is fraught with dangers. But we must have faith, for Ongo-Poningoo is with us always, and she shall see us through. Can I get a quiet ‘hallelujah’, my siblin’s?”
Hesitantly, the boys whispered, “hallelujah,” while the frog waved his flippers.
“And might I say, there need be no lickin’, my young siblin’,” the frog said, looking up at Jack. “Not sure where you got that idea, or why you’d want to... Not that there’s anything wrong with it, if that’s your thing.”
“It’s not my thing,” Jack protested.
“I do not judge you, my siblin’.”
“But it’s not my thing--”
“Only the great all-creating, all-destroying amphibian goddess Ongo-Poningoo, wallowing in the mud of paradise, can judge. For she will judge us all when our time is come. I merely say: no lickin’ necessary. Sorry to disappoint.”
“It’s not my thing.”
“Allow me to introduce myself,” croaked the frog. He hopped to the dirt and stood on his hind legs. “I am Siblin’ Rhacopho, fellow pilgrim and key to eternity, at your service.” He bowed deeply.
“Uh, hi,” said Jack.
“You are the key,” whispered Tija’l with excitement.
“‘For lo, we are all the key to our own salvation’,” the frog quoted cryptically.
“Sure, sure, but we need a key to something specific.”
Interrupted in his sermonizing, the frog glared up at the white-haired boy. “Be not so hasty, my foxy siblin’.”
“What’s a siblin?” Jack finally asked.
“We are all siblin’s, youngling. Whether you be frog or fox,” the little preacher preached. “We are all brotha’s and sista’s and mixta’s in the all-seeing eyes of Ongo-Poningoo.”
“Oh.”
“Yes, okay--” Tija’l began.
“Hallelujah!”
“Okay, but--”
“‘For lo, I say unto you, patience shall be its own reward’.”
“We don’t have time for patience!” Tija’l insisted in a harsh whisper. “We need to get to the portal before we’re discovered.”
“Portal?” Siblin’ Rhacopho immediately hopped up onto Tija’l’s shoulder. “Tell me about this portal.”
“The entryway is closed and guarded,” Tija’l explained, “And we have to get through.”
“Where?”
Both boys pointed.
In the blink of an eye, the frog had hopped high into the air and was clinging sideways to a stalk of bamboo.
“Greetin’s, Ma’am,” he said to Orange. She nodded her head and pointed to the bridge. The frog-key turned and saw the mural for the first time. His eyes bulged even more than usual, and his jaw went slack. “The gateway to paradise,” he croaked a little croak that was part joy and part relief. “The time has come at last! The colony of the ages awaits.”
“All right...” said Jack, not really understanding a word. “Can you unlock it or something?”
“It is my destiny to do so. And you shall follow - it is the will of Ongo-Poningoo. See you on the inside!” He leapt instantly away. The boys stood and carefully peered through the bamboo as the frog hopped to the water’s edge. Then in one, perfectly placed jump, he hit the pylon right between the korvidai’s tentacles. As though it were the surface of a pond, he plunked through the cement and disappeared. The guardian didn’t see a thing.
“Strange little dude,” Jack mumbled.
“He’s certainly enthusiastic.”
On the pylon, blotches of black paint started to drip in different directions, converging toward the spot where the frog had disappeared, creating a dark circle in the center of the graffiti. The korvidai sensed the change and grew restless. On the overpass above, the crows rustled their wings in anticipation.
The spot of dark paint grew, stretching wide across the cement. The bottom edges of the circle oozed down to form a large archway, while around it, red-brown colors smeared, taking shape until a form emerged. Two circles rose on the top like bubbles through blood, becoming two bulbous eyes. They peered over the black arch that was, by now, the enormous mouth of a red frog that looked like it was trying to swallow the entire river.
The more Jack stared at the painting, the more realistic the portrait became. There were small bumps and wrinkles in the skin, and rivulets of water glistened in the folds of its face. He could even see the curvature of its mud-brown eyes.
Then it blinked, and for the first time, Jack could see a tunnel, an enormous drainpipe six feet in diameter, receding into the darkness of the frog’s throat. The blue breasted korvidai perched in front of it freaked out. Thrashing like a frenzied shark, he tore futilely at the cement, but could not enter the tunnel.
A splotch of yellow appeared in the blackness of the frog’s mouth. Jack thought it was a tongue as it stretched and grew, but it started to writhe as it got bigger, and became the unmistakable shape of a mucous-yellow serpent. It slithered from within the gaping mouth and up the wall, immune to the korvidai’s relentless rampage.
The brushstrokes of the snake coiled into position over the top of the frog, and its head turned forward. Two drips of paint leaked from the mouth like venom, becoming the enormous fangs of the snake. Its reptilian eyes stared directly at Jack, easily seeing through to his hiding place. Then the painting was still.
The boys ducked back down into the shadows.
“Okay,” Jack whispered, “I see the entrance now.”
“Yes. But now, getting to it seems to be the problem.” Tija’l spoke quickly, formulating a plan on the spot. “Very well: there are two korvidae. Orange and I will distract them, then you run for the entrance.”
“What about all the crows?”
“Most of them should follow their masters.”
“And the rest?”
“Get there before they get to you.”
“What about you?”
“We’ll circle back. Keep the door open for us.”
“But--”
Orange chirped frantically above them, and a terrible squawk of discovery sliced through the air, ending the debate by freezing the word in Jack’s mouth. A cacophony of caws arose in response.
“Aléthia rise...” muttered Tija’l under his breath.
Just over their heads, a foot long black beak ripped through the screen of bamboo like a spear. Only the sheer thickness of the stalks stopped the attacking korvidai. When he saw the boys scrambling out from beneath him and retreating, the beast went berserk. Tentacles tore at the sticks, shredding them to fibers, while he snapped and heaved and thrashed after them, screeching as though his volume alone would overwhelm them, and they would fail to flee.
< Sibling Rhacopho, the frog key >
Chapter 28 - Guardians at the Gate
____________________
In the face of such frenzy, they fled. Orange zipped up and away as the boys retreated through the grove.
“I’ll draw it away,” Tija’l yelled.
“But--”
“The plan!” Tija’l insisted as he pushed Jack to the side, then doubled back, instantly shifting into the speedy fox. He leapt directly at the thrashing bird, and rebounded off its face with all four paws. The korvidai snapped his beak, clipping a tuft of fur from the tip of the fox’s tail as Tija’l bounded away. Spitting out the fur, the beast thrashed his way up and out of the bamboo. A cloud of crows descended over the island.
As Tija’l drew the enemy away, Jack ducked back and grabbed one of the broken shards of bamboo, about three feet long, then raced for his bike The crows swarmed through the trees after the fox, scanning with their implanted silver eyes. To Jack, their grating caws sounded like the howls of hunting dogs. The korvidai leader swept overhead, seeing everything through his minions’ eyes, ready to dive.
Meanwhile, Orange dove toward the back of the other korvidai’s head as it scanned the island below. She clutched at the creature’s crest feathers with her tiny talons as she flew past, and tore them from his scalp. The monster squawked in pain and surprise, and immediately launched in pursuit of the little menace. Behind him, all but two of the crows followed, peeling away from the railing in perfect precision like the tail of a kite.
Tija’l ducked and wove through the undergrowth like only a fox can duck and weave. This is more like it, he thought, so much better than the ice tunnel without anywhere to turn. He pounced toward a tall stalk of bamboo, shifting in midair. As a boy, he grabbed the bamboo, and the whole branch swayed. Crows above saw the movement and converged.
Then, as the fox, he rebounded and raced away from the overpass, just ahead of his pursuers. Again, he leapt and shook the bamboo. Crows saw the movement, and the korvidai saw all. He calculated his prey’s speed and direction, and dive bombed.
Up on the bike path, Jack pulled the strings on his hoodie tight and began pedaling as fast as he could. He had managed to haul his bike, unseen, up the incline and had briefly considered retreating all the way back home. But then he saw the korvidai take off after Orange, followed by the murder of crows, and he knew he had to take his chance without hesitation. Clutching the bamboo shard against the handlebars, he steered over the edge of the path and careened down the embankment at crazy speed toward the tunnel.
He was spotted within a second by the two remaining crows. They launched from the railing, squawking an alarm.
Yanking up on the front wheel, Jack crashed to the shallows and continued pedaling, tearing through stray reeds. Just fifty more feet, he calculated, and only two crows He was going to make it.
But before his optimism had a chance to settle in, the water on the far side of the bridge grew dark, as though a cloud had passed over the sun. To Jack’s horror, a mass of black feathers, talons, and sharp beaks swept down and came around under the bridge. A hundred crows that had been waiting, unseen, on the far side of the overpass, streamed toward him. The sound of their flapping feathers echoed, rebounding between the water and the cement, drowning out the freeway. Jack’s calculations changed.
He stood on the pedals and tried to go faster, but the water was getting deeper.
Orange darted through the sky, leading the korvidai away from her boy. She dipped and veered, but the enemy was surprisingly agile for it size. Below, the freeway roared with danger, the speeding trucks frothing the air into violent and chaotic currents. She dove into the maelstrom. The korvidai, larger than an eagle, angled after her and coasted upon the turbulence, while the crows following their leader were tossed about on the spiraling wind.
In the confusion of onrushing trucks, the korvidai lost sight of his tiny prey. He scanned back and forth until another sneak attack from behind tore out more of his crest feathers. Orange darted ahead, nimble as a dragonfly, letting the feathers fly back in the korvidai’s face. Enraged, he raced after her.
Back at the island, the korvidai leader calculated exactly where the dirty little fox would be scurrying away under the weeds. He dove through the bamboo, screeching like a harpy. He crashed to the ground right on top of the fox - or rather, where the fox should have been - but his quarry wasn’t there. Only a family of waterfowl lifted off, startled by his sudden and violent entrance into their home.
The korvidai clamored his way out of the bamboo, then launched into the sky. He soared far above the entire scene, always staring down. That mangy rodent couldn’t have just disappeared, he calculated. It had to be somewhere down there.
From his great height, he saw his comrade angle down toward the freeway.
Orange veered steeply into the canyons of traffic, tucked tight, trying desperately to navigate the 75 mile-per-hour rapids of air. Horns blared. Cars and trucks swerved as the black dinosaur bird raced between lanes after her.
Then came the rain of crows. Trying to follow their leader, they floundered and thudded against windshields, sucked helplessly into the unpredictable tornadoes that raged around the trucks. The lucky were flung up past the turbulence and away. The unlucky broke their bodies against rearview mirrors or were pummeled senseless then shredded upon the road. Orange suddenly darted sideways in front of an onrushing wall of glass, and blinded by his rage, the korvidai followed.
The current caught the wyvern, and she was flung around until, flapping her wings at full speed, she managed to escape the ferocious tide. Her pursuer did not. The truck’s windshield slammed into him and shattered. Stunned, the korvidai was blown up and over the top of the cab where another whirlwind spun his body and hurled him down. In an instant, he was sucked into the vortex between the wheels and the wheel well. One tentacle caught in the spinning tires, and his body was yanked in and ripped apart between the highway and the treads.
As the truck jackknifed on the freeway, and a cacophony of screeching tires, blaring horns, and crunching metal crashed behind him, Jack pedaled furiously through the water. He aimed for the point in the river where the current would wash him into the pylon, and he could jump into the pipe just above the waterline. He gripped the handlebar tight and let his elbows absorb the shocks, just like he’d done a million times before out in his hills. Back then, if he fell, he would merely scrape his hands. Here, he figured, his fate would be worse.
The two sentry crows dove at him, and he whipped the bamboo stick around like a tennis racket, cracking one across the head. It spiraled to the river as he backhanded the second bird across its wing.
But the main horde was nearly upon him, billowing under the bridge, a storm cloud with one hundred beaks and two hundred talons. He pulled his bike into a skid. The tires lost their grip on the slime, and just as the fastest crows were upon him, he splashed backward into the river. The current swept him under the front line of the attack, and the crows scattered, coming around to get at the boy first. Jack and his bike crashed against the pylon, and the birds descended.
He rose from the water, swinging his arms wildly, and dove. Black feathers blinded him, and he was pummeled and scratched from every direction. Talons clutched his sweatshirt as he scrambled into the tunnel. The main mass of the birds broke upon the concrete, unable to breach the barrier. But four crows with their talons already in their victim were pulled through the entrance with him.
The screaming of the frenzied birds magnified in the contained space of the drainpipe. They threw themselves at their quarry like rabid beasts, without hesitation or thought of self preservation.
Jack rolled and managed to grab one bird by a wing and swung it around, smashing it against the wall. It stopped flailing, and Jack threw it out the door. Its limp body was consumed into the mass of crows that swarmed over the invisible barricade.
He caught a glimpse of his bike just outside. The birds clutched at every available inch, flapping wildly, lifting it out of the water.
The three remaining crows in the tunnel teamed up and hopped forward, pushing Jack back toward the entrance. It seethed with talons and beaks. He could go no further back, and braced himself for their attack. Lifting his arms to cover his face, he was startled to see Siblin’ Rhacopho suddenly land on the back of his hand. The frog was at least three times larger than he had been before.
“Wuzzup, my siblin’?”
Jack looked up at the crows. Rhacopho turned to the birds, and his bulging eyes bulged. He thrust forth his arms. The crows launched at Jack.
“The blood of Ongo-Poningoo compels you!” shouted the amphibian preacher, and a torrent of mud burst from his flippers. Inundated by the thick goop, the birds splashed back to the floor. They struggled, flailing their wings, but the mud dried solid within seconds, sealing them motionless in lumpy caskets of dirt.
“Oh my god,” Jack exclaimed.
“No. Mine, actually,” Rhacopho corrected. “No one walks my path with hatred in their hearts.” He stood on his back legs like a tiny frog-man and pointed to the entrance. “Is that your machine?”
Jack turned to see his bike being lifted out of the water.
“My bike!” he despaired, unable to reach through the wall of frenzied birds.
“Stand back,” Rhacopho commanded. Jack did. The frog repeated his conjuration, and the divine mud flooded from his flippers, blasting the crows away from the entrance. They splashed to the water and were washed helplessly down river. The remaining birds panicked at the unexpected attack and scattered. Taking his chance, Jack lunged out and grabbed the rear tire of his airborne bike. He tried to heave it back to the tunnel, but twenty crows still clung to it, yanking the other way.
“Ongo weeps!” Rhacopho gasped, shocked at the sheer number of the frenzied enemy.
But on some unheard communal order, the crows all dropped the bike at the same time and flew away. The remaining murder streamed after them. Jack didn’t care why; he quickly hauled his bike into the tunnel.
“Who are you that you have such enemies?” asked the frog.
“I really don’t know,” Jack admitted.
The amphibian preacher leapt to Jack’s shoulder and placed his mouth to the boy’s ear. Jack could feel the frog reaching into his mind, like a key was being jammed through his eardrum and jiggled.
“The Drake,” Rhacopho gasped.
Then Jack saw Tija’l the fox running toward him. The crows he’d lured away were still searching the island far behind him. He’d made it! But something seemed wrong: the fox was bounding as fast as he could through the reeds and shallows, and he looked terrified. Then, Jack saw why.
Slicing down from above, a triangle of black came into his view. Trailed by his new murder of crows, the korvidai leader angled around like a fighter jet streaming black smoke. Tija’l was ahead of them, but they were gaining fast. Jack started to race out to help. But the fox was too far away, and he stopped, frozen with one foot in the tunnel and one in the knee deep water.
“Arouse your spirit, my siblin’!” Rhacopho commanded into his ear.
The birds were gaining too quickly; Tija’l wasn’t going to make it. Jack’s heart felt like it burst, releasing superheated blood that flooded his torso. Sweat broke out on his skin.
Jack saw the glint of copper that was Orange zooming to the rescue. She tried to dig her talons into the giant bird, but it rolled and snapped sideways with its beak. Orange yipped in pain as her tail was caught. The korvidai flicked her away, and she spiraled clumsily to the water.
“Awaken the beast within you!” Rhacopho insisted. Jack’s boiling blood seared through his body.
Tija’l was twenty feet away, the birds fifty.
Steam began to wisp from Jack’s wet clothes, and the frog leapt away.
Tija’l was ten feet away, the korvidai twenty.
Jack could see the fury in the leader’s silver eyes.
Five feet.
The fox leapt, but the water was too deep, and he slipped, quickly sucked under by the current. The korvidai plunged for his prey.
All the heat from Jack’s body raced to his head, and he could see only red. He lifted his hand as if to physically hold the monster back, and screamed.
“Nooooo!”
It felt as though his hand were suddenly plunged into boiling water, and his scream became one of pain. The korvidai was blasted head on with a surge of molten heat so intense that its body vaporized instantly. The birds around him were thrown backward, shriveled to burnt crisps. The next tier of crows burst into flames. Screeching fireballs flashed past, and water hissed as the fried birds crashed into the pylon and fell to the river.