Changing the Prophecy Chapter 3 Episode 1

 Chapter 3 Arrival Part Two -- Episode 1

Maia flew down the wind tunnel filled with blue powder with Elena wrapped around her like a life jacket. When she burst through the passage into Faracadar, Elena still clung to her, eyes squeezed tightly shut. “You can let go now,” Maia said, unable to conceal the note of anxiety in her voice. Elena opened her eyes slowly and peered around. She blinked and winced.

“Such bright colors,” Elena observed.

“You’ll get used to it,” Maia assured her brusquely. Deep-blue wisps of smoke drifted off Maia’s shoulders.

“Where are we?” Elena asked.

“Faracadar. And you shouldn’t have come,” Maia said.

“Please don’t be angry with me,” Elena begged.

“I’m not angry. I’m worried that I can’t keep you safe here,” Maia informed her. Elena’s eyes widened with fear and uncertainty.

At that moment, Denzel popped through and red smoke steamed off his head and shoulders. He glared at Elena as he shouted, “Oh no, not you! You stupid idiot!”

Elena promptly dissolved into tears. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize…”

“No you didn’t, did you? You have no idea how big a mistake you made. No idea. But now we’re stuck with you, so you’re going to have to try to keep up. Maybe we can leave you with the People Beyond the Lake until Loma and the return, because…” He stopped in mid-sentence and gazed around him. “Whoa,” he said to his sister, “where the heck are we?”

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Maia replied.

“This is not Debbie’s Circle, not at all. And where are Dosh and Sonjay? Shoot. Your dumb friend must have scrambled the passage,” Denzel accused.

“I would get it if she had scrambled my passage, but how could she have scrambled yours? Or anyone else’s? She jumped onto my cushion. If it got scrambled, it happened because Ruby and Crystal don’t know how to do it right yet. Don’t blame Elena.” Maia wrapped her arms around her weeping friend.

“Having her jump onto your cushion in the middle of it sure didn’t help.”

“And yelling at her won’t help either, will it?” Maia chided him. “Maybe Dosh and Sonjay will come through in a minute.”

“And maybe I’m Abraham Lincoln,” Denzel muttered.

Maia ignored her brother’s snide comment as she pointed to the mountains that rose behind them. “It looks like we arrived near the Amber Mountains.”

“Looks like it,” Denzel agreed.

“But which side of them are we on?” Maia wondered aloud.

“The sun looks like it’s on its way down so I’m going to guess that it’s late afternoon. Then that direction is East, toward the ocean, and that direction,” Denzel turned around, paused, and shouted, “RUN!” He took off up the rocky hillside. Maia grabbed Elena’s hand and raced to follow her brother as several of Sissrath’s Special Forces, in full battle dress, emerged from the trees.

Denzel scrambled swiftly up the hillside to an open cave entrance above him. The Special Forces moved up the hillside behind him and the girls, but the grown men in battle dress could not keep up with nimble young feet and they failed to overtake their prey before Denzel, Maia, and Elena reached the opening of the cave and rushed inside, deep into the darkness, and far from the cave’s mouth, with their hearts roaring in their ears.

“Sheesh, only been here a hot minute and Sissrath’s already trying to snuff us. What a sore loser,” Denzel complained as he bent over and gasped to catch his breath.

“Who are those guys?” Elena asked.

“You don’t want to know,” Denzel answered. “I’m guessing you’re starting to realize that following us here was not such a hot idea.” He actually grinned. He was happy to be back and he was going to enjoy watching that nimby-pimby Elena figure out that she had bitten off more than she could chew. Fortunately for him, neither Maia nor Elena could see him grinning in the dark. He sat down and rummaged around in his backpack until he found his flashlight.

“Those guys are the Special Forces, the elite army of a nasty enchanter named Sissrath, who tried to kill us last summer. We beat him fair and square, but he’s probably still after us,” Maia explained curtly, before following the beam of Denzel’s flashlight with her gaze. “We’re in the Through-Tunnel,” she said matter-of-factly when she had taken a quick look around.

“Ya think?” Denzel replied.

“Oh shut up. Being mean accomplishes nothing. We have to work this out together,” Maia reminded him.

“You were here last summer? Where? Where is here?” The ramifications of her impulsive act of jumping into the unknown began to dawn on Elena.

Denzel answered, “It’s way too complicated to explain right now.”

“I’m sorry,” Elena cried, “I never should have done it. Send me back and I won’t ask any questions. I’ll forget the whole thing. Your secret will remain safe with me. This never happened.”

“Well, it did happen, and we can’t send you back. Believe me, if we could then I would do it in a heartbeat,” Denzel said.

“We’re on the Big House side, right?” Maia asked her brother.

“That’s what I’m thinking,” Denzel confirmed. “So we have to go through.”

“Not the geebachings again!” Maia exclaimed. “Last time, they made me laugh so hard that my lungs almost exploded.”

“Don’t remind me of that; they nearly killed you. At least this time we don’t have the high chief with us to give us away hollering because a little mouse ran over his toe,” Denzel noted with relief.

“We don’t have to creep through in silence, you realize. I can play the timber flute all the way through and that should protect us until we get to the other side,” Maia said.

“That sounds like a plan. We can probably get through in a couple of hours of walking and then spend the night at the Wolf Circle,” Denzel suggested.

“A couple of hours? Of walking?” Elena wailed. “In a mountain? In my pajamas?”

“You have your jeans on,” Maia contradicted, “not your pajamas.”

“I’m in my pajama top,” Elena whined. “And your brother’s here. I look silly.”

“I already told you back at Manzanita Ranch, I’m not interested in you, so get over me,” Denzel said harshly. It more than annoyed him that of all the people from their life at Manzanita Ranch who could have followed them to Faracadar, Elena had succeeded in doing it. He was burned out on her having a crush on him. He had not given her the least encouragement. How mean did he have to act for her to get the message?

“I’m thirsty,” Elena said, sniffling.

Maia removed her canteen from her shoulder and passed it to Elena. “Have some of my water, but don’t backwash, aight? And don’t drink too much either. We need to conserve for later.” While Elena took a sip from the canteen, Maia asked Denzel, “What if Dosh and Sonjay turned up right after we did and got captured by the Special Forces?”          

“I didn’t see any sign of them,” Denzel said.

“Me neither, but maybe we should wait here for a little while to see if they turn up,” Maia suggested. “If they’re inside the mountain then they would need me to play the timber flute to protect them from the geebachings.”

“Doshmisi?! Sonjay?!” Denzel called out. His voice echoed back at him. He paused to listen for a response, but he knew it would not come. “Maia, they’re not here. They’re just not. They either turned up somewhere else or they didn’t make it through at all. We need to push forward without them.”

Elena handed the canteen back to Maia, who attempted to provide her friend with a simple explanation. “Here’s the situation in a nutshell. Me and my brothers and my sister have a job to do here in Faracadar. We have a duty to keep the people safe and prevent bad enchanters like Sissrath and his smelly buddy Compost and other bad creatures, like sea serpents, from harming anyone. Or taking control of the land. The people in this land call us the Four because we have special responsibilities. Things are going on here in Faracadar that we have to find out about, and then do something about. This tunnel leads through the Amber Mountains. We have to follow the tunnel and meet up with our friends on the other side in the Wolf Circle to find out from them what’s happening. You’ll have to go with us.”

“Sea serpents? I’m afraid of snakes. I’m even afraid of worms,” Elena said with a whimper.

“Then I guess you should have stayed off Maia’s passage cushion.” Denzel threw Elena a smug I-told-you-so look.

“Stop hating on Elena,” Maia snapped at Denzel. She attempted to reassure Elena by telling her, “You’re not in danger of encountering a sea serpent in here; we’re inside a mountain. In here we have to watch out for geebachings.”

“So geebachings are funny?” Elena asked hopefully.

Denzel and Maia looked at each other and burst out laughing.

“Bueno,” Elena said as she smiled for the first time since arriving in Faracadar. “I could use a few laughs.”

“Not this kind,” Maia warned. “Geebachings make people laugh themselves to death. Literally. They make you laugh so hard that you can’t stop and then you can’t breathe and then you die. They have no mercy.”

“And they live in this mountain?” Elena asked, wide-eyed.

“Yup. But we dealt with them last summer. They can’t listen to music. It makes them turn into harmless orange birds. They’re OK with singing and drumming, but musical instruments, like my flute, transform them.” With those words, Maia produced her timber flute from her bag and put it to her lips. She began to play and, as she did so, her amulet began to glow with a blue light.

“Whoa,” Elena remarked as she pointed at the amulet. “Hecka cool. I want a necklace like that.”

“Yeah, our amulets do that sometimes. C’mon, we need to walk,” Denzel informed Elena, “while Maia plays music to keep the geebachings away.”

“How do you know which way to go?” Elena asked.

“We told you. We were here before,” Denzel switched off the flashlight as he fell in behind his sister and followed the music of her timber flute into the darkness. He looked up at the phosphorescent mold on the ceiling of the tunnel. The pattern of the glowing mold indicated which way to walk. Jasper had taught him about the mold last summer. Denzel had looked forward to seeing Jasper upon his arrival in Faracadar, but things had not gone as expected. “Later Man,” Denzel whispered softly to Jasper, even though his friend couldn’t hear him. He hoped that maybe Dosh and Sonjay had arrived in Debbie’s Circle like they were supposed to and that Jasper would lead them to him and Maia eventually. For the time being, the best plan was to try to reach the Wolf Circle without getting killed by geebachings.