See part one for explanation and
disclaimers. Hallmark & James Gurney still own the
characters and I’m still not profiting from this. Hope you’re enjoying
this. Still recommended for teens and
up for action/violence and mild language.
7
Alano
had no idea where Freefall had been before the dinosaur rendezvoused with him
at Rock Cove, but there was a coat that didn’t belong to David tangled in the
ropes Barrett used in lieu of a saddle.
“What happened to the owner of this?” Alano had asked the
pterosaur. “You didn’t eat him, did
you?”
The
pterosaur had beat its wings one time, the wind generated by the sweeping
motion almost knocking Alano over. “I
hope that wasn’t a ‘yes’.”
“Maybe
David would like to be the one sitting on a rock in the middle of nowhere with
no one but a scalie for company---no offense.”
Alano didn’t want to tick off the huge dinosaur. “Wish you could tell me what he’s up
to.”
There had been nothing to do
but wait. Alano had been sitting on a
hill in Rock Cove for a full day now, bored to tears, wondering if Barrett had
already gotten himself killed by Gabriel Dane or Doris Le Sage before Freefall
had showed up. He didn’t know why David
wasn’t with the pterosaur and wished for a moment that he had his friend’s
ability to communicate with the beastie just so Freefall could tell him what
was going on. It was too soon to give
up on David, but Alano hated waiting.
“I’ll
bet he’d sit here for five minutes before he decided to go into hiding at a nice
tavern instead. Some place with a
fire. And food,” Alano continued his
monolog while the ptearsaur watched impassively. “Crossing Gabriel Dane again…why do I listen to him? I should have pounded David into the ground
the first time he messed with Dane is what I should have done. For his own good. Knock some sense into that
off-worlder brain of his.”
Freefall
turned his massive head towards Alano and made a sound like a growl.
“Oh,
don’t get that way. I’m just thinking
out loud, that’s all. I don’t mean
nothing by it. But David should know
better than to trust---”
“Le
Sage?” The woman in question asked.
Alano
spun to find Doris Le Sage and her pack standing at the bottom of the
hill. He scowled at the pterosaur. “Well, thanks for the warning!”
Freefall
whuffed innocently.
“Where’d
you come from?” Alano asked her.
“Where’s David?” His friend’s
absence made Alano that much more nervous.
“Where’s the medallion?” she countered.
David had told her that Alano had the
sunstone? He must have---how else would
she know who had it and where Alano was hiding if David hadn’t told her? Alano’s problem was trying to determine
if David had told her because he wanted her to retrieve it, or told her right
before she stabbed him in the heart and came to steal it---and if so, was she
moments from stabbing Alano as well. “I
asked where David is, woman,” Alano snapped.
“Keeping the dino-scouts
entertained,” Le Sage explained as she climbed the hill. “What? You don’t trust
me? Where’s the medallion?”
“What medallion?” Alano
asked.
A knife pressed to Alano’s
neck and a voice that could only be Gabriel Dane’s whispered in his ear: “Don’t be cute with us.”
“Back off Dane. You need to learn some trust. Alano was about to hand it over---weren’t
you?” Le Sage held out her hand.
Alano handed it over to
her—what choice did he have? Gabriel
pulled the knife away from the large man’s throat. “If you’ve crossed David…”
She wasn’t intimidated in
the least. “You’ll do nothing. David can take care of himself.” She turned her attention to the
pterosaur. “Will that smelly pile of
dinosaur hide obey you?”
Freefall ‘growled’ in
warning. The pack raised spears
nervously, thinking the pterosaur was about to attack. Alano held up a hand to hold them off. “He’ll obey me just fine.” He gave Freefall a glare of warning, just so
the pterosaur didn’t do something stupid that would get them both killed on the
spot.
Le Sage nodded. “Good.”
She addressed Dane. “Where’s the
boat?”
He held out his hand. “Give me the medallion.”
“See ya,” she turned on her
heel and started to march away. Dane’s
pack raised their weapons to stop her---only to instantly find themselves
staring at the blades belonging to Le Sage’s own pack.
“Very well…you a stubborn
woman, Doris,” Gabriel conceded, not in a position to argue. Her pack still outnumbered his; he couldn’t
take the medallion from her by force.
“Follow me…and bring the scalie.”
Freefall beat his
wings. Alano knew what it wanted to do
and grabbed the rope around its thick neck.
“Just you wait, beastie. David’s
not in any danger if he’s with the scalie-lovers. He’ll be all right. Worry
about us for now.”
*
The
saurian Keeper had been alerted to the recovery of the Tohma Faiere. Noree was waiting when the strange
procession reached the Temple, holding the glass box in her claws, ready to
receive the gem. Marion took the stone
from its pouch, careful not to make direct contact with it as she did so, and
carefully replaced it within its container.
“Thank
the ancestors. Well done, Marion,
Karl. I was afraid that outsider
would---gah!” Noree let out a yelp when David, flanked by
the saurian guards, followed Karl, Marion, and Romana into the temple. “You!”
David grinned, enjoying her reaction immensely. “Doesn’t anyone just say ‘hello’ anymore?”
Noree
clutched the box protectively, making sure to keep it well away from the
outsider’s reach. “Pah---the sooner we
figure out what you’ve done to violate our faith stone and set it straight, and
send you back to your ch’kra blasphemers, the better…” She was rather petulant,
but then, she was still suffering the effects from the smoke bomb the outsider
had lobbed into the Temple to steal the Tohma Faiere.
“Noree!”
Marion interrupted.
The
Keeper’s harsh glare softened. She made
a visible effort to collect herself.
“Yes, you’re quite right, that wasn’t a very kind thing to say. I apologize.”
David
shrugged. “I’ve been called worse.”
“No,
Noree, we have another problem…Karl, show her,” Marion explained.
Karl
hesitated---not anxious for what he knew was coming---and waved for Noree to
open the box. Noree offered the stone
with a look of confusion and suspicion.
Karl reached inside and gingerly touched the meteorite with just one
finger.
It
flared to life, and again his vision went blue.
The storm raged. Karl had done everything his father taught him, but somehow he’d
steered the small aircraft into the squall.
It had come from nowhere, inescapable and deadly, assaulting the plane
like a living thing, tossing it up, down, and sideways, trying to dash it to
pieces in the turbulent ocean below.
Their dad wrestled with the controls, trying to keep the plane aloft,
but Karl saw real panic in his eyes. He
knew they were going down even before their father warned them to buckle
up. It seemed a waste of time---Karl
knew enough about aviation to know that hitting the ocean at high enough speed
wasn’t any different than hitting concrete.
The plane sputtered one last
mechanical breath and died completely.
His stomach did a flip-flop as the craft plunged, nose-first, towards
the black water…
Mercifully,
the vision didn’t last long. Marion
reached out and pulled Karl’s hand away from the stone. The light winked out at the loss of
contact.
“Oh
dear…” Noree said.
“What
were you were saying about ‘violators’?” David smirked. Marion stepped between him and Karl before
the skybax rider could respond.
“Th---that’s
not---I mean---you prayed to the Tohma Faiere?” Noree asked.
Karl
protested, “I never touched it!” If that outsider doesn’t stop smirking, I’m
going to deck him.
Noree
closed the box. “We’ll see about
that. You’ll both---“ She turned her
reptilian head to indicate both Karl and David. “---have to participate in the
ritual if we’re to get to the bottom of this.”
“Ritual?”
David held up both hands. “Wait a
second. Look, if you’re talking about
anything involving burning incense or smoking weird plants or wearing weird
costumes or drinking weird potions or having to like wear nothing but feathers
and dance around to a bunch of tribal drums…well, hell, count me in.”
“I’m
going to hit you,” Karl warned.
The
outsider wasn’t fazed a bit. “Repressed.”
“SIT!”
Noree boomed, thumping her long tail to get their attention. She guided them to the benches, which had
been arranged to form a square at the center of the temple. The temple’s sentinel towered above
them. Karl and David took a seat on benches
opposite of each other. The outsider
raised an eyebrow at the statue. “I
know this guy---fought Godzilla and Mothma, right?”
Noree
paid no attention. She sat on the stone
floor between the two humans, at the foot of the sentinel statue. The Keeper opened the Tohma Faiere’s case
and began an incantation in her saurian dialect. Karl and Marion listened with strict attention. Karl closed his eyes when Noree instructed
him to do so. Noree glanced impatiently
at David when he didn’t move a muscle.
“Can
you try that again in English?” he requested.
“What’s
wrong---don’t know Saurian, Barrett?” Karl asked, opening just one eye.
David
extended a hand and made a distinctly off-worlder gesture with it. “I know sign language, Scott.”
Noree
and Marion simultaneously cleared their throats. Marion translated for the Keeper: “The Tohma Faiere’s gift is enlightenment. Through its power, we can insight to those
things which have been, those things which are, and those things which might
have been. It’s gift was abused by
those who believed it had the power to grant the heart’s fondest desires, to
recreate the world as they would have it.
Those who do not understand its true powers still pray to it to grant
their wishes and reshape reality.”
David
raised an eyebrow. “You guys aren’t serious with this ‘reshape reality with a
space rock’ crap, are you?” Marion and
Noree gave the outsider scolding glances, and he obediently shut up. “I guess
you are.” All right, just play along…whatever gets you out of this scalie temple
and back to the submarine the fastest…
“Those who abuse its power
are marked by the stone---it will glow at their touch…as it did for both of
you. The spell that was created by both
of your prayers to the rock…” Marion continued her translation.
“I did not pray to that rock!” Karl and
David said in unison.
“….must be undone by both of you. That which you have changed with its power is illusion and the illusion must end. You will close your eyes, put your hearts and your minds at peace---”
“Oh,
brother.” The outsider mumbled.
“---and
seek to discover the life which the Tohma Faiere has given you and the life
which it has taken away. Both of you,
touch the Tohma Faiere at the same time.”
To
make sure they did so, Marion grabbed their wrists and physically wrapped their
hands around the faith stone. The Tohma
Faiere’s light flared with renewed brilliance.
Beams of light radiated out and slammed into Karl and David like balls
of lightning. The impact knocked the breath
out of both of them and sent them flying from the benches into the clay walls,
knocking them cold.
“What
happened!?” Marion was torn, undecided which one to help first. Noree and Romana quickly moved to check the
outsider while Marion did the same for Karl.
Both were unconscious, whether from the stone’s power or the impact with
the wall, Marion wasn’t sure. She
lifted Karl into a sitting position, propping him against the wall, and laid a
hand against his forehead, using her innate empathic abilities as her mother
had taught her to determine that the skybax rider was dazed, but not injured.
“The
ritual failed,” Noree pointed out the obvious.
Yes, I can see that… Marion moved now to
check on the outsider. A moment’s touch
told her David, like Karl, was stunned but otherwise unharmed. “But, you said
it would work if everyone who prayed to the stone…”
The
Keeper nodded. “Yes, that is precisely
what I said.”
“I
don’t understand---you mean someone else used the Tohma Faiere?” Marion
guessed.
Noree
gave a very human shrug. “That can be
the only conclusion.”
“Who? Le Sage, maybe?”
“I
do not know.” Noree indicated David.
“But he might.”
*