Conrad Edison and the Anchored World (Overworld Arcanum Book 2) (10 page)

Heart thudding, I rushed my words. "You don't seem to trust magic much."

His lips curled into a snarl, and he seemed to forget the snakes. "Magic killed my parents."

"If you're to be the savior of the world, what will you use to fight evil?"

His lips tightened. "Magic, most likely.

I raised my eyebrows. "Even if you don't trust it?"

"Well…" he didn't finish his sentence.

Walking up the wall had to be part of the test. You had to trust magic enough to walk up a wall; otherwise, you didn't deserve to study at the university. But were the snakes part of the test, or had my parents seized another opportunity to attack me? Somehow, I had to make him believe that he could walk up the wall. I could only think of one way to motivate him.

The river of snakes was only seconds away from surrounding us.

"Your parents died in vain, Harris."

Anger simmered in his eyes. "What did you say?"

"I said your parents died in vain if you don't turn around and walk up that wall." I pushed him in the chest. "If you don't believe in your future, then you should let the snakes eat you for all I care."

"I will not die here," he shouted.

"You don't believe in the prophecy, do you?" I pushed him again. "Your parents died for nothing. The prophecy is false."

"Don't you say that about my parents!" He shoved me back. "I'm supposed to save the world. I can do anything!" With that, he turned and walked right up the wall and to the ceiling. Face red and breathing heavy, he looked down at me. "See?"

I ran up the wall to join him and watched as the snakes completely covered the floor where we'd been. "That was close."

Harris pressed his lips together and stared at me. The red faded from his cheeks, and his breathing calmed. "Thank you, Conrad. For a minute, I forgot who I am and how important I'll be to everyone."

That wasn't exactly the lesson I hoped he'd learn. "What's important is that you never give up."

"Look, they're gone," Harris said.

The corridor was empty once again. The snakes had been an illusion.

He grinned and patted my shoulder. "Let's find out what's at the end of this tunnel."

I was more than happy to move on. We reached another twist in the brick path that took us back to what I assumed was the actual floor. At the end stood a closed wooden door with a black iron handle. My instruction sheet offered no more direction, so I reached forward and opened the door. On the other side was a short but wide hall with a room at the end. In the center of the room stood a table with a plate bearing two slices of cake with red frosting.

A wooden sign hanging on the wall to our right gave us the next objective.

Enjoy a slice of cake.

The door creaked shut behind us. I tugged on it, but it wouldn't budge.

"Well, I guess we can't go back," Harris said.

I wasn't sure if he and I were supposed to do this together, but since there were two slices of cake, I assumed it was okay. "I suppose not."

"Hmm, I wonder if that cake will do something to us," Harris said.

I thought back to books I'd read. "Maybe it will shrink us so we can walk through a tiny doorway."

His forehead wrinkled. "I don't see a tiny door on the other side of the room." He motioned me on. "Let's go get the cake."

"Wait." I grabbed his arm. "It might be a trap."

"Like the snakes?" He snorted. "This time we'll know anything that comes at us is fake."

"I doubt they'll use the same trick twice." I knelt and examined the floor and the walls to make sure they weren't booby-trapped, but didn't see anything suspicious. Putting my eye level to the floor, I tried to see if any bricks rose higher than the others since I didn't want to step on a pressure plate. But after staring across the floor, nothing obvious stuck out.

Harris raised an eyebrow. "Well?"

"Everything looks normal—well, at least for this place."

He stepped forward. "Let's go."

I followed his lead. At first, nothing stood out of the ordinary until I realized it was taking us longer than expected to reach the end of the hall. "Is it my imagination, or are we not getting any closer to the cake?"

Harris broke into a run and I hurried to follow. The end of the hallway remained tantalizingly close, but we weren't closing the gap. I looked at the floor to see if we were on a conveyer belt, but the red brick path looked no different than before.

Panting, Harris stopped and I ran into him. We both sprawled on the floor, chests heaving.

"What's happening?" the other boy said breathlessly.

I sucked in a breath. "It's like a dream where you run as fast as you can, but don't go anywhere." Closing my eyes, I hoped for some insight from my parents, but their soul shards remained quiet.
Think, Conrad.
The goal was the cake, but walking toward it kept it out of reach. I propped on my elbows and looked behind us. The door remained twenty feet in one direction. I glanced toward the cake and estimated it seemed only slightly farther away.

"Maybe directly approaching the room is the issue." I stood up. "Let's walk away from it and see what happens."

Harris pushed himself up. "I'm willing to try anything at this point."

We walked to the door and tugged on it again. It remained locked.

"Any other bright ideas?" the other boy said.

I came up with one. "Let's walk backwards and not look at the cake."

"Backwards?" He groaned and threw up his hands. "Fine."

"How far does that look?" I asked.

"About fifty paces." Harris shrugged. "Let's count our steps."

I nodded and turned away from the room. "Remember, don't look back."

"I won't."

Keeping our eyes on the door, we walked backwards. "One, two, three," we counted, putting distance between us and the door.

"I think it's working!" Harris said.

I wasn't ready to congratulate myself just yet. Once we hit about twenty paces, the door remained the same distance. We took a hundred steps back but failed to enter the room and even worse, failed to get a piece of cake.

Harris blew out an angry breath and looked back. "It didn't work."

I paced back and forth, but couldn't figure out the puzzle.

"I just want to leave," Harris whined. "This is a stupid test. I'll bet the cake tastes bad anyway." He continued to gripe, and I let him, trying to sort this out in my head.

I looked down at the red brick path. It continued straight to the room. Earlier this test had forced us to stay on a marked route. But now it wasn't leading us where we needed to go.
What if we aren't supposed to stay on the path anymore?
"Step off the red bricks," I said and walked onto the bare stone to the side of the pathway.

"This is a waste of time." Harris rolled his eyes and stepped to the side with me.

We walked forward, but still remained stuck in place. I was about to join Harris's complaints with my own when I thought about the earlier part of the trial. I looked at the wall.
Maybe we have to go farther off the path.
I put a foot on the wall and stepped forward with my other one. I grinned as gravity shifted and let me stand on the wall.

Harris gasped. "But there's no path up there."

"I think that's the point." I pointed toward the door. "Back there, the test made us stay on the path, but sometimes, you have to leave it. Sometimes you have to take your own way."

"I am Harris Ashmore, son of prophecy," the other boy said, and stepped up the wall. He stood beside me and belted a laugh. "We're gonna get that cake."

We walked all the way up to the ceiling and continued toward the room at the end. This time, we reached it. I walked across the ceiling behind the cake and strode down the wall. Harris and I reached the floor and stood two steps from the goal.

He took a deep breath. "Here goes." Harris reached forward and touched the table.

"Yes!" I shouted. Hesitantly, I reached for a slice of cake and took it. It smelled heavenly and looked so moist.

Harris took his slice and held it up. "Here's to having our cake and eating it too."

"Cheers," I said with a grin.
I hope this cake doesn't do something terrible to us.
I took a bite and moaned with pleasure. "It's so sweet." Every bite melted in my mouth like strawberry ice cream. I finished it off regrettably fast.

Harris swallowed his last bit and brushed crumbs from his mouth. "I was wrong. The cake is really tasty."

A click and a creak echoed behind us. We turned and saw a door that hadn't been there before open into a brightly lit room. I retrieved my instruction sheet from my pocket.

Congratulations, you've completed the test. Proceed to the main hall and await your results.

Harris showed me the same message on his parchment. He pumped a fist. "We did it, Conrad! We won!"

We were finished with the test, but that didn't necessarily mean we'd passed. I kept that thought to myself. Harris and I stepped through the doorway and found ourselves back in the main hall near the front entrance to the university. Disoriented, I turned back around and saw only a small closet through the doorway.

Harris and I exchanged confused looks.

"Magic," Harris said with a shrug.

I nodded. "Magic."

Dozens of other students sat in the hall, some of them looking downcast while others laughed and talked excitedly with their friends. I didn't see Max or Ambria. Then again, they were probably only now taking the path trial.

Harris clapped me on the shoulder. "I was wrong, Conrad." He flashed his teeth. "I think we can be good friends."

Lily walked around the corner and saw us. "You're done!"

"Just now," Harris said. He nudged my arm. "Conrad here saved the day."

"Oh?" Her eyes grew curious. "Do tell."

"Well, you know, the path test," he said.

Her forehead pinched. "Path test?"

Harris nodded. "You know, where you have to walk on the ceiling, and the snakes come, but you get delicious cake at the end."

"I didn't take that test," she replied. "I had to carry a candle through a windy room without it going out."

"Hmm." Harris shrugged. "That sounds hard."

"Couldn't you just hold your hand over the candle?" I asked.

She giggled. "No, silly. The wind shifted in every direction at random. "

I tried to imagine the situation. "Did you have anything to enclose the flame?"

"Nope." She bounced on her heels. "Guess again."

"Well, it's rather hard to do that without more information." I considered the path trial. "What happened on your way to that room? Were there other features of the room that might help you?"

"Conrad's brilliant," Harris said. "He came up with ideas I never would have considered."

"He's definitely a thinker," Lily said. She tapped a finger to her lips. "Well, I had to escape a maze of rotating tubes before I reached the windy room."

"Were the tubes movable?" I asked.

She tilted her head slightly. "Yes…how did you—"

"You moved the tubes from one room into the windy room and placed them in a row." This time, my father's knowledge filled in the gaps. "When the tubes rotated, they redirected the air using the Magnus effect."

"Wow." Lilly stared at me. "I'm speechless, Conrad. I studied everything before this exam, even Science Academy texts. That's how I figured out what to do."

"Well, the Magnus effect seems like magic, but it's actually science." I smiled. "I studied the Science Academy texts too."

"Amazing." Lily shook her head slowly. "I was going to use the tubes to make a wall, but there weren't enough of them to block both sides of the path. That was when I remembered how spinning cylinders or spheres affect airflow."

Harris put a hand on my shoulder. "I don't think we met on accident, Conrad. I think this is fate."

"I agree," Lily said. "I haven't met many people as smart as me."

While I appreciated the compliment, it seemed that Lily and Harris were a bit full of themselves. Lily was obviously smart, but it felt like she'd talked down to me with that comment.

"What's going on out here?" Baxter, red faced and dripping in slime stepped out of the closet Harris and I had exited. Behind him emerged a slimy, frustrated Ambria.

"Whoa, what was your final test?" Harris asked.

Ambria growled and glared at Baxter. "We had to defeat a giant frog. How I ended up in the same test as him, I'll never know."

"Defeat a frog?" I asked. "Did you have to kill it?"

"It was blocking the door," Baxter said. "We couldn't move it, and when we cast spells at the bleeding thing, it smacked us with its tongue."

Lily burst into giggles. "How did you beat it?"

"You crawled through it, didn't you?" I said. "That's why you're slimy."

Harris chortled. "Like I said, genius!"

Baxter narrowed his eyes. "Yes, you wanker, we had to crawl into its mouth and out its bum. The next thing I saw was your ugly mug when the door opened."

"We had delicious cake when we solved our puzzle," Harris said. "It was the best cake ever."

Ambria stomped her foot. "You got cake?" She held up her arms. "Look at me, Conrad! Just look at me! I'm covered in filth. If anyone deserves cake right now, it's me."

"You two stink," Harris said. "You deserve a bath."

Ambria scowled and stiffened her shoulders. "Maybe you deserve a hug."

"No." Harris held up his hands in surrender. "I don't want one."

"Well, you're going to get one." Ambria ran at him.

He dashed around the group, gripping Lily's arms and hiding behind her. "Stop!" He burst into laughter as Ambria dodged back and forth. "Stop it!"

Before long, we were all laughing at their antics. Ambria flicked her fingers and sprayed Lily and Harris with slime, then crossed her arms and glared at them. "Fine, I won't hug you."

That brought on another round of laughter.

I saw Max exit a door on the opposite side of the hall. He flinched when he noticed Harris and the others, but I motioned him over.

"Hey," he said in a meek voice. "Are you all finished?"