Chapter 3

“It’s amazing,” Oliver said. “This definitely isn’t natural. Do you know who built it and how?”

“No one knows,” Mara replied. “It was discovered a few hundred years after yumans arrived on Proserpine. By the rate of erosion and the length of the stalactites, it could be anywhere from ten thousand to several hundred thousand years old.”

“Seems like something the Raquon would have done,” Oliver remarked.

“If you believe in that stuff,” Mara said.

“Hey, they’re also the ones who made the elemental medallions, so it’s not an unreasonable hypothesis.”

“Okay,” Mara said, “a hypothesis.”

While they were talking about sciency stuff, Conner noticed a figure appear on top of the stone above the rope ladder. “Uh, guys?” he said. He pointed. “Who’s that?”

The figure reached down and started pulling up the ladder. The three of them stopped, looking at him. When Mara didn’t say anything, Conner called, “Excuse us, but we kind of want to go up there.” He looked at Mara. “Right? That’s where we’re going?”

“Yeah,” Mara said.

The figure sneered at them. “This is my place,” he said. “You can’t come here.”

“Uh, no,” Mara said, “you can’t own the Cistern. It belongs to the community.”

“Hah! Says you,” the person said. “But who’s got the ladder? Me, Pearson. And that means the Cistern belongs to me, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

“No, you can’t do that!” Conner shouted.

“It’s the Disease,” Oliver said quietly. “He’s probably a good person normally, but he’s been infected.”

“What do we do?” Conner asked.

“We could try to reason with him,” Oliver suggested. “The Disease makes people go wild, but they still have free will.”

Conner looked at the angry boy, hauling up the ladder and shouting insults at them. Somehow he didn’t think reason would get through to him. He held his hand out toward Oliver. “I have another idea. Let me see that medallion.”

Oliver handed over the blue disk, and Conner focused his attention on the inside of the Cistern. As he had thought, the sensory extension the medallion gave him showed him it was full of water. He smiled, and concentrated on that water. Pearson did not notice the two clear tentacles rising up behind him, until they were around him, pulling him backward. With a cry and a splash, he disappeared. Conner then made a wave wash over the side, pushing the ladder back over the edge.

“Come on!” he said, running for the ladder. He grabbed the rungs and started pulling himself up, Mara and Oliver right behind him. As he neared the top, however, Pearson appeared, dripping wet and angry as a kokoa.

“You think you can defy me?” Pearson snarled. “Think again.” He grabbed the top of the rope ladder and started to shake it.

From behind Conner, Oliver and Mara cried out. Conner kept climbing, making sure he had a solid grip on each new rung before letting go of the one before with his other hand. He heard a cry, and a thump, and looked to see Oliver had fallen off the ladder, over the railing, and onto one of the pipes. “Are you all right, Oliver?” he called.

“I’m good,” Oliver called back. “I can’t see a way back up, though.”

The ladder jolted, and Conner lost his footing, his body smacking into the Cistern’s wall. Scrambling, he got his feet back on the rungs, and pulled himself up to the top. Pearson tried to grab his wrists and throw him down, but Conner grabbed hold of Pearson’s and gripped tightly. Fall or not, they would both do it together.

Conner jumped, getting his foot onto the wall. Pearson had to lean back in order to not tumble over the edge, and though he tried to kick Conner’s foot off, he failed, and Conner pulled himself the rest of the way up.

He and Pearson both stood on the seven-foot rim of the Cistern, eying each other warily, their feet ready to either move or keep them steady if the other attacked. Then, Conner remembered he was holding the water medallion, and that meant a whole new range of possibilities were open to him.

He considered his options. If he made the water surge and push Pearson over the edge, the boy could get hurt, or worse, fall into the boiling lake below. He could pull him into the Cistern like before, but Pearson would be wary of that this time.

Conner decided on what he would do and smiled. The water started to spin in a circle. Pearson’s attention darted to it, and at that moment, Conner rushed forward and shoved him in. Pearson floundered, trying to grab the edge, and Conner turned up the velocity.

The water near the sides rose and spilled over the edge, and would have taken Conner with it had he not reacted and made it split around his feet. Below him, Mara cried out, and Conner hoped she was all right.

Conner saw a glint at the bottom of the Cistern. Something small and white lay there. The medallion of ice, he thought it must be. A hand grabbed his ankle and yanked him out of his thoughts into the water. Pearson had come around again.

Conner’s head went under the surface, and he gasped, air escaping from his mouth. Because of the current, it was hard to tell which way was up, but a punch to his gut told him which way was Pearson. Luckily, being underwater, the blow was not hard enough to hurt.

Conner’s head breached the surface. Now that he had his bearings, he sped the whirlpool up rather than slowing it down, hoping he wouldn’t get sick. Pearson had drifted away from him, giving him the opportunity to refocus on his goal, the medallion at the bottom. He drifted toward the center, holding all the water within a foot of him still.

As he got close to the middle, he started to feel an undertow, and almost panicked. Instead, he dipped the water around his head, forming a bubble of air. Using the island of calm water around him as a diving suit, he descended to the floor of the Cistern, to where the shiny white disk with a snowflake etched into it lay. He closed his fingers around it, and the ice medallion was his.

His head jerked to the side, and sudden pain stole his attention away. The bubble around his face left him for the surface, leaving him at the bottom of the pond without breath. He looked up just in time to see Pearson’s foot streak by a second time, missing his face by an inch.

Reacting reflexively, he channeled the power of the medallion of ice at Pearson, freezing the water around his legs. Now buoyant, Pearson floated quickly up to the surface. Conner swam upward with all his might, lungs desperate for air. He reached the surface and gasped, to find Pearson flailing his arms and gasping for breath, the ice on his legs trying to turn him upside down. Conner cracked the ice apart with the medallion’s powers, before more carefully constructing a cage around his torso and arms, keeping him afloat like a life preserver.

“I’ve got what I came for,” Conner said, holding the medallion up as he tread water. “We’re going to leave now.”

Pearson snarled. “I won’t let you get away with this. I’ll make you pay.” He rocked himself back and forth, bobbing toward Conner.

Conner combined the water and ice medallions to push Pearson to the side of the Cistern and lock him there in ice. He thrashed and shouted, but for the moment he was out of the way. Conner climbed onto the Cistern’s edge, and looked over to see Oliver still on the pipe he had fallen to, and Mara by the railing at the closest point to him. Both of them were looking up.

“I got it,” Conner called, holding the ice medallion up so they could see it.

“Great,” Oliver said. “Now can you get that ladder down so I can get back up there?”

“Sure,” Conner said. He turned to where the rope ladder was attached to the rock. Two metal stakes were stuck in it, the ropes tied tightly around them. Conner undid the knots and tossed the ladder down to Mara, who tied it to the railing.

“Catch,” She said, tossing the free end of the ladder to Oliver.

Oliver caught it, and looked at it, appearing to mumble to himself.

“Uh,” Mara said, looking at Conner, “It appears we didn’t think everything through.”

“What,” Conner said, “Just hold on tightly and jump, and then when it stops swinging, you climb up.”

“Are you kidding?” Oliver said. “That would be so dangerous.”

“Do you have another idea?” Conner asked.

“Use the ice medallion,” Oliver said. Then he added quickly, “but don’t toss it down to Mara! It might roll off the edge. Instead, just use it from up there to freeze my end of the ladder to this pipe.”

“Are you sure that will work?” Conner asked. “What if it melts while you’re climbing?”

“Well you’ll have to make sure that doesn’t happen,” Oliver said.

Conner took a look at Pearson, who was shivering by now, the anger in his expression having given way to quick, shaky breaths. Conner hated to keep him like that, but he’d have to until the ladder was back in its proper place to set him free.

He turned back to Oliver, who held the end of the ladder so that it was taught, its second-to-bottom rung against the pipe. Using the water medallion, Conner drew a tendril of water from the Cistern, and then used the ice medallion to freeze the ladder rung to the pipe. Oliver gave the ladder a tug, and it held. Conner kept pouring freezing energy into the ice as Oliver had instructed.

Oliver climbed onto the rope ladder, gripping tightly. It wobbled beneath him, and he held tight, a look of fear on his face. His body was arched away from it, awkward since it hung at an angle instead of straight down.

“You can do it, Oliver,” Mara said.

“The problem is that the old saying, ‘don’t look down,’ is kind of impossible right now,” Oliver said, as he slowly and tensely moved one hand to the next rung.

“That’s it,” Mara said, “keep going.”

One limb at a time, Oliver crawled up the ladder, until he made it to the railing and Mara helped him over. He said something that Conner could not hear from his distance, but guessed was an expression of thanks and relief.

Oliver and Mara untied the rope ladder and threw it up to Conner, who reattached it. Conner turned back to find Pearson floating limply, his lips a frightening shade of blue. “Oh crud,” Conner said, running over to him and grabbing his arms, at the same time using the ice medallion to break the ice surrounding him. He was breathing, but not shivering, and he appeared unconscious. Conner pulled him out of the water and dragged him to the ladder, and then looked over the edge, trying to figure out how to get him down. “Hey guys,” he said, “I need some help here.”

“What happened?” Oliver asked.

“Is he all right?” Mara said.

“No,” Conner said, “he needs help. Any idea how I can get him down? I can’t carry him down the ladder.”

“You could make an ice slide,” Oliver said.

Conner thought about it, imagining the motion of the water and the actions he would take with the medallions. It made sense, and he set to work. He drew a trail of water from the Cistern, and tried to form it into a slide from the lip to the path below. But after a few seconds, control slipped from him, and the water crashed down and slid off of the bridge.

Conner stared down, his mind running through how it had felt as his control over the water had slipped away. It was as if he had held the water in a cardboard box; it had held for a little while, but then the paper had started to melt. A few leaks sprang, and then the box collapsed in his hands. And a boy lay near him in critical condition, his time running out.

He drew another trail of water, to try again. Once more, he could barely get it into position before it collapsed. A jolt of panic almost made him drop the medallions.

“Just freeze it while you have time,” Oliver called. “You can add railings after it’s in place.”

Conner took a breath, and once again drew water from the Cistern. This time, he froze it to the Cistern’s lip, creating an ice beam from the top downward. It was shaped the wrong way, like an O, so that if he tried to slide Pearson down he would fall off the side, but at least it held. His confidence renewed, Conner drew more water, building up the sides of the slide into a U shape. Finally, it was ready, solidly in place, held tightly to both the wall of the Cistern and the walkway.

Conner placed Pearson in the slide, feet first, and let him go. Oliver and Mara caught him when he reached the bottom, and carried him out of the way. Then Conner slid down himself, breathing a sigh of relief now that they were all together again.

“We got it,” he said, holding the ice medallion in his hand. He gave both of the medallions to Oliver.

“Irial,” Oliver said, looking at the white disk. “The second out of seven.”

He held it for a moment, and then put both of them in his pocket. Then he looked at Pearson, lying on the ground. “Do you know him, Mara?”

“I’ve seen him around,” Mara said, “but I never really met him.”

“Let’s get him back to town,” Conner said, lifting Pearson onto his back so that his arms hung over Conner’s shoulders. He was heavy, but Conner felt personally responsible for getting him to safety.

Mara led the way back through the tunnels, and eventually they made it back to Oridion. They called for help, and some people came out of the houses nearby, forming a small crowd. Conner explained that Pearson had hypothermia, and a kind small group took him away. With him off their hands, Conner, Mara, and Oliver went back to Mara’s house.

“What’s up, gang,” Michael said when they arrived. “You look shaken.”

Conner, Oliver, and Mara looked at each other, wondering what they should tell him. Conner spoke. “We found someone who was in trouble, and we brought him back to the village.”

“What kind of trouble?” Michael asked.

“Hypothermia,” Mara said.

“Well then it’s good that he got back to safety,” Michael said, “but what was he doing down near the Cistern that would give him hypothermia?”

Conner, Oliver, and Mara shared another glance, and then Oliver blurted, “we don’t know.”

Conner nodded quickly. Claiming not to know was always an easy way out of situations like these. He supposed they could tell him about the medallions, but even if he believed that, they would also have to tell him about the fight, and that would probably get Mara in trouble.

“All right,” Michael said, suspicion evident on his face and in his tone. “Well. You’re welcome to stay for a while longer, if you would like to.” He smiled, and then stood up and left the room.

Conner, Oliver, and Mara went into the living room. “What will you do next?” Mara asked.

“We’re going to Meysenia,” Oliver said. “Loriah, the air medallion is there. That’s the last one I know where it is. But the Great Dooku Flower is also there, and if anyone knows where the rest of the medallions are, it’s him.”

“What about when you have all of the medallions?” Mara asked. “How will you use them to get rid of the Disease?”

Conner looked at Oliver. “I want to know too.”

Oliver wilted beneath their stares. “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m planning to ask the Dooku Flower.”

Denise stepped into the room. “Mara! There you are. I had heard you had gotten into some trouble.”

“Um,” Mara said.

“You shouldn’t go outside,” Denise said. She turned to Conner and Oliver. “You there. It’s time to leave.”

“But Mom,” Mara said.

“Don’t but mom me,” Denise said. “Go to your room, where you’ll be safe.”

Mara stared at her mother with a look of horror. “You have the Disease, don’t you?”

“Disease schmisease,” Denise said. “Off with you.” She turned to Conner and Oliver. “Shoo. Scram.”

While her mother was turned away from her, Mara mouthed, “window,” and then turned toward her room.

“All right, all right,” Conner said, as he and Oliver stood, holding their hands in the air as if the girl had pointed a gun at them.

“And don’t come back,” Denise yelled at them, as they snatched their coats from the rack.

Outside, Conner and Oliver exchanged a worried glance. “Will Mara be okay?” Conner asked.

“She said ‘window,’” Oliver said. “So we should probably loop around to her bedroom window.”

“Okay.”

They did just that, walking away so that if Denise was watching, she would see them heading toward the elevator to the surface. Then, once they had gone out of sight, they turned and approached the house from a different direction.

As they peeked around the corner of a building, Oliver pointed. “I think that’s Mara’s window.” The shades were open, and a lamp was positioned so that it shone out. They crept closer, and then darted across the street, getting as close as they could to the wall of Mara’s house without stepping on the pipe that ran along the ground next to it, so that they could not be seen from any of the other windows.

Oliver peeked into the window, and then knocked softly. The window opened, and Conner got closer so that he could see Mara on the inside.

“I want to come with you,” Mara whispered.

Conner and Oliver shared a glance. Then Oliver said, “Sure, I don’t see why not.”

“Yeah, that would be fine,” Conner agreed. “But are you sure?”

“Absolutely,” Mara said, lifting a backpack out the window to Oliver. “If I stay, my mom will keep me in this room for who knows how long, and then I’ll catch the Disease too.” She lifted a big trunk that had wheels, and Conner and Oliver had to work together to get it out the window. “My house isn’t a safe place for me anymore.”

She grabbed a coat, stepped onto the windowsill, and hopped out, joining them on the outside.

“Won’t your parents worry, when you disappear on them?” Conner asked.

“That can’t be helped,” Mara said, “but I did leave them a note. Okay, let’s go.”

Oliver pulled Mara’s trunk, and Mara carried her backpack out of town and through the bioluminescent tunnel to the elevator. They ascended in silence, and then the doors opened, surprising Conner with daylight. The underground city had felt so much like night time, that he had forgotten what time of day it was. Then again, he remembered, the planet had multiple suns that would keep it lit up from multiple directions.

“I think we came from this way,” Oliver said, pointing in the direction Conner also remembered having come from. Oliver tried to walk, but the trunk he pulled didn’t want to move through the snow. He tugged at it, building up some snow in front of it like a plow. “Ugh, this isn’t going to be easy.”

“Why not use the medallions?” Conner asked.

“That’s a good idea,” Oliver said. “Here.” He fumbled with his coat, and got the medallions out of his pockets, and gave them to Conner. Conner concentrated on the snow in front of the trunk, and packed it into a track for its wheels to roll on. That worked wonderfully, and they were able to make the journey to their ship quickly.

“Just over here now,” Oliver said. “I think.”

Conner could see the Black Fire’s orange stripe through the thicket of tree trunks, becoming more and more visible as they got closer.

“It’s neat,” Mara said. “I like it.”

Oliver stepped up to the hatch and opened it. It flipped down to the ground, creating a staircase. As he and Mara worked together to get Mara’s trunk in, Conner looked around, feeling like something was off.

Then he saw it. “Hey Oliver,” he said, “did we make all of these footprints this morning?”

Multiple sets of footprints lay in the snow, circling the ship, and heading off in a direction that was not toward Oridion.

“No,” Oliver said, “but I’m not surprised. A spaceship in the forest, especially one with as sleek a paint job as ours, is bound to draw the attention of anyone who passes by.”

“I guess you’re right,” Conner said. He climbed into the ship, closing the door behind him.

“It’s cozy,” Mara said, looking around the cabin. “Where should I put my stuff?”

“It can go in the bunk room,” Oliver said, “but, uh, we only have two beds.”

“That’s all right, I can sleep on the floor out here. My parents and I go camping a lot, so I’m used to sleeping on the ground.”

“No, no,” Oliver said, “we’ve also camped out quite a bit. You’re our guest, so I insist that Conner sleep in the cabin.”

“What?” Conner said indignantly. “At least volunteer yourself.”

“Oh Conner,” Oliver said with a grin, “you just want to sleep in the same room as a girl.”

Conner sputtered. “Speak for yourself!”

Mara rolled her eyes. “Oh, stop it, boys.”

Once Mara’s stuff was secured, Oliver started up the ship’s ignition. Mara sat in the copilot’s chair, and Conner crouched between them. Oliver pressed a couple of buttons, saying, “I remembered to turn on both the artificial gravity and inertial dampeners this time.”

The shuttle accelerated forward, the open ground in front of them acting like a runway. When they got fast enough, the wind picked up their wings, and they ascended into the air. Mara expressed amazement as they rose into the clouds and above, and the sky faded from blue to black, once again showing the dazzling spectacle of stars and galaxies.

“Hm,” Oliver said. “That unidentified ship from before is still there.”

“What does that mean?” Mara asked.

“Nothing,” Oliver replied. “If we see it, so do the authorities, and if anything were wrong, they would have done something about it.” He turned the ship around so that it coasted backwards, like he had when they had left Moebius. “Here Mara, let’s take a look at your planet before we go.”

Mara gazed at the two icy eggshells with the temperate strip between them. “You know, pretty soon it’s going to be completely white,” she said.

“It’s pretty amazing that your people found those caves and figured out how to survive well through its deep winters,” Oliver remarked.

“And that the indigenous life managed to evolve with such drastic changes to the climate,” Mara said. “Although it’s true that anywhere there is water and an energy source, once life finds a foothold, it thrives.”

Oliver turned the ship once more, and punched some buttons on the computer console. With his hand on the lever, he turned to Mara and said, “Watch this.”

With a tug, the view in front of them folded around them, revealing the green tunnel of hyperspace. Mara stared out the windshield with her eyes and mouth open wide in wonder.

After a minute, Conner stood and stretched his legs. “At our next stop,” he said, “let’s buy another chair.”