The Search for Truth

‘Beauty is truth, truth beauty,—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.'

—Keats, “Ode on a Grecian Urn”

I am a stag of seven tines.

I am a wide flood on a plain.

I am a wind on the deep waters.

I am a shining tear of the sun.

I am a hawk on a cliff.

I am fair amongst flowers.

I am a god who sets the head afire with smoke.

I am a battle-waging spear.

I am a salmon in a pool.

I am a hill of poetry.

I am a ruthless boar.

I am a threatening noise from the sea.

Who but I knows the secret of the unhewn tomb?

—“The Song of Amergin,” A.D. 400

CHAPTER ONE
The Substance Channel

CHAPTER TWO
The Ghost Surgeon

CHAPTER THREE
Mrs. Stain's Rumors

CHAPTER FOUR
A Smug Harpy and a Helpful Ghost

CHAPTER FIVE
The Torn Quest

CHAPTER SIX
The Pool Table

CHAPTER SEVEN
A Dragon in the Jungle

CHAPTER EIGHT
Swami Parvananda

CHAPTER NINE
The Little Dark Room

CHAPTER TEN
The Oracle

CHAPTER ELEVEN
Snail Mail from Oscar

CHAPTER TWELVE
The Manticore

CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Virtue of Caring

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
King Stain

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Ugry's Advice

CHAPTER SIXTEEN
The Twrch Trwyth

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Ghost Ship to Avalon

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Singing Crystal

CHAPTER NINETEEN
A Proposal

CHAPTER TWENTY
The Awen of Creation

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
A Furious Butler

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
A Disturbing Vision

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
The Novikov Time Bender

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Olwen Cullwich

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
King Piter's First Mistake

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Battle Between Love and Hate

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
A Letter to Erec

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Old Magic

EPILOGUE
One Thousand Years Earlier

AFTERWORD

I
T MUST HAVE
been a dream. That was the only explanation Erec Rex could think of for what had just happened. Yes, a nightmare. That's what it was.

Thirteen-year-old Erec blinked a few times, waiting for his bedroom to appear. It did not. In fact, his skin still looked disturbingly green. And his fingernails—were they shrinking before his eyes? They hadn't really been long claws a moment ago, had they?

After waiting another minute, Erec squeezed his eyes shut, wishing
he was anywhere else. The sad fact had sunk in—he was not in bed after all. He was lying on his back in Fork-Out Grocery. Heaps of sparkling pink notebooks and toppled stacks of diaper boxes were scattered all around him in a big mess on the floor.

At first he thought he was covered in snow. Then he saw the slashed boxes. Torn white fluff from shredded Lil' Dumpling diapers covered everything around him like a Christmas display. But who would have shredded the diapers all over like that? He ran his hand through his dark hair, which was straight in front and wildly curly in the back, shaking diaper fuzz from his head.

Then Erec noticed gray dust sprinkling down from a black, charred hole in the side of a nearby case of spaghetti boxes. It looked like someone had blasted it with a flamethrower. Who could have come in here and done this? Someone really ransacked this place.

Erec gulped as a realization dawned on him. If he truly was here, in the grocery store, and he had not been dreaming, then maybe…

Could
he
have done all this?

This was not good.

A little girl stood staring at him, her lip trembling. She tugged on her mother's skirt and pointed at Erec. The mother glanced at him with disgust, as if he was a delinquent who made a mess of store displays for fun.

Erec wished that were true. Because what really happened was far worse than a bout of bad behavior. What had just happened, in fact, should never have occurred here, in New Jersey, in plain sight of normal people.

Erec hid his eyes with a diaper fluff–covered hand. He had to face the facts. He had begun to turn into a dragon.

 

His adopted siblings had seen it too. All five of them had been swarming around the grocery store, dumping unhealthy sugared products into their adoptive mother June's cart faster than she could
take them out. Danny and Sammy, thirteen-year-old twins with sandy brown hair, and Nell, eleven, had watched Erec grab hold of a shelf when his head began to spin. Nine-year-old, redheaded Trevor had popped around the corner just as Erec's vision faded out. And Zoey, just five, with wild blond curls and hazel eyes, was staring at him when he woke up on the ruined store display.

But it was what happened in between his vision fading and waking up among diapers that made Erec's heart race. He'd had a cloudy thought.

Cloudy thoughts were what Erec called the strange commands that took him over at times, forcing him to do whatever they said. His whole life he'd had to deal with being overcome, when he least expected it, with orders appearing in his head. Cloudy thoughts made him do things like run to the bottom of a staircase and hold his arms out. He would feel like an idiot crouching there, but then a little girl would tumble down the stairs into his arms. He would have saved her without even knowing she was coming. Cloudy thoughts had also saved his own life many times, giving him extra strength and telling him what he needed to know to survive.

But things changed. Erec inherited first one and then the other eye of his dragon friend, Aoquesth, who died saving Erec's life in a battle. The dragon eyes were now attached to the back of his own eyes, and carried special powers that he looked forward to discovering. The first one made his cloudy thoughts more intense, with visions like premonitions. But this was his first cloudy thought since he had gotten two dragon eyes, and it was different, more powerful than any he'd had before.

Erec took a breath. What
had
just happened to him in the grocery store? Right when he picked up a carton of his favorite cookies, Chocolate Springballs with cherry centers, everything had turned green. His eyes had swiveled around so that his dragon eyes were facing forward. His mind seemed to race through time so fast he couldn't make out what was happening. He remembered grabbing the metal shelf for support.

Then the vision in his head slowed down and showed him something terrible. His best friend, Bethany Cleary, was in danger.

 

Thick white ropes and webs hung in the air. Bethany was panting, long dark curls plastered against her sweaty face. She was backed against a wall, trapped. She had been running away from three boys, one with white, fuzzy hair covering his head and neck, another with an odd gray cap that stuck high over his head, and the third with black hair and an evil glint in his steely blue eyes. Now she was cornered.

 

Erec gasped. It was Dollick, Damon, and Balor Stain. They were the triplets working with evil Prince Baskania to overthrow the Kingdoms of the Keepers, the unseen magical realms connected to ours. Erec had been amazed when he found the strange place, and more shocked to learn he had been born there, in Alypium.

 

Balor Stain pointed what looked like a normal television remote control at Bethany. Her body stiffened as she was magically lifted from the ground
.

A shadow appeared, morphing into a tall man with silver gray hair that grew into a sharp widow's peak. A cold blue eye peered from his face with a dark gap marking where his other eye should have been. Today his forehead was wider than the rest of his face. Across it gleamed seven more eyes, each from a different former owner
.

It was Thanatos Argus Baskania. The Shadow Prince, as his followers called him. A smirk snaked across Baskania's face. “Ah, Bethany Cleary. Daughter of the great seer, Ruth Cleary. Too bad she had to go so young, too, eh?” His voice sounded like nails on a chalkboard, making Erec's bones shiver.

Bethany glared at him, unable to speak or move.

“But Ruth was in my way. Just like your friend Erec.” Baskania cackled “Soon he will join your mother and you, along with everyone else who is an obstacle to me.”

 

Erec filled with rage as he watched the horrifying vision unfold. He clawed the air around him, vaguely aware that his skin was turning scaly and green, and claws were sprouting from his fingers.

 

Bethany looked furious. She struggled with her invisible bonds.

Baskania sucked in his breath. “Well. The Fates have smiled upon me at last. I was fascinated to hear the secret you just told your friend. So you hold the key I have been searching for.” His voice lowered to a whisper. “Somehow, you will teach me how to use the Final Magic. Control over everything I desire, life and death. Amazing He smiled, the corners of his mouth twitching. “If I can't find the answers I need from torturing you alive, I'm sure I will discover them when I remove your brain.”

 

Erec roared in fury at the image in his head. He lost control, thrashing and clawing. Something hot came out of his mouth. It made him feel better for a moment, but not for long.

 

A rope spun out of Baskania's palm and wrapped tightly around Bethany. “Say good-bye to the world, Bethany Cleary. You'll be safe in my fortress for the remainder of your short life.” He snapped his fingers. Baskania, Bethany, and the Stain triplets disappeared.

 

That's when Erec opened his eyes into the white diaper fluff, the would-be snow of Fork-Out Grocery.

 

Nell appeared at Erec's side with the help of her walker. “Erec, you…you…” She pointed at the charred hole. Black strands of spaghetti poked from the boxes around it. “Fire came out of your mouth.”

Erec stared at the boxes. He had breathed fire?

But how? Erec shook his head. So this was what his dragon eyes were doing to him? Turning him into a dragon? He shouldn't be here, in Upper Earth. If people saw him shooting fire here, they'd lock him up.

He gulped, thinking about what he had just seen happen to Bethany. Had she already been captured? Did Baskania really find out her secret—that somehow she carried the key that he could use to learn the Final Magic?

Baskania not only wanted to rule the Kingdoms of the Keepers, but he also owned huge megacorporations all over the nonmagical world, and led a political movement trying to take over the United Nations. If Erec had not stopped him, Baskania would have taken over the Kingdoms already and destroyed them. That was reason enough for Baskania to want to kill Erec—but he also craved Erec's dragon eyes for himself.

What Baskania wanted most of all was to learn the Final Magic, magic so powerful that nobody could ever stop him. King Piter, ruler of Alypium, had told Erec that the Final Magic would make Baskania lose control and destroy the world.

Erec froze. His cloudy thought wasn't over yet. A message filtered into his mind that told him the rest of what he needed to know.

Bethany was not captured yet. Baskania had not found out her secret. But he would. Erec's vision would come true, and Bethany would die—if he didn't get to Alypium immediately and stop his friend Oscar Felix from ruining everything.

 

Panic seized him. How would he ever get there in time? He knew that in just three hours Bethany would tell Oscar the secret, one that nobody should ever know about her. And somehow because of
this, only three minutes later, she would be captured by Baskania and would die.

“Mom,” Erec snarled between gritted teeth, “we have to go
now
. Buy the food later.” He took a breath. Maybe she didn't understand. “I'm telling you, Bethany is in danger. I have to get there fast. I don't think I'm going to make it in time.”

June nodded, but kept putting groceries onto the conveyor. She glanced around to see if anyone was listening, then said, “Relax, Erec. I'll get you there as soon as we get home.”

“But, Mom…” He wanted to yank her out the door. “It takes time to catch a train to New York. And to get to FES Station. Then I still have to take the artery there, and then find Bethany, wherever she is. We have to go now.”

June tossed a box of Flying Count cereal onto the counter, her brown hair pulled into a ponytail. The cashier lazily scanned cracker boxes and put them in a bag. She seemed to be moving in slow motion. June said, “I understand, Erec. That's why I'm going to get you there immediately. As soon as we get home. Let me just pay for this. You'll have plenty of time.”

“How can I get there immediately? It will take hours.” Frustration filled him. She just didn't get it.

June looked around and then whispered, “I have a way to get you to Alypium straight from our house.”

“But—” Erec's breath caught. He knew his mother was not supposed to perform magic in Upper Earth. If she did, the wrong people might find her again. Normally he would never want her to do that. But Bethany would die if he didn't get there right away.

She noticed the look on his face. “What's wrong? I thought you'd be happy that you don't have to go through FES Station.”

Erec shrugged. “There's no choice. You're right. You'll have to
send me there by magic. I just worry about you getting caught.”

June smiled. “But I won't be doing magic. I got a new Vulcan product that will take you. They're not trackable.”

Erec's mother had bought things before from a store called Vulcan, in the Kingdoms of the Keepers. Strange things, like an alarm clock and toothbrush that acted like they were alive. Well, Erec thought, whatever this new thing was that June had bought, it had better work, and fast.

After paying the cashier, they walked through the parking lot, zipping up jackets against the chilly January air. A heavyset woman with dark hair, a very white face, and too much makeup bumped into Danny right as they were leaving. She turned her head away quickly before Erec could get a good look at her. Danny looked up and said, “Oh, excuse me,” but she was gone.

In the car, Danny and Trevor played keep-away with an apple. Danny made Trevor list statistics of his favorite sport, springball, each time he caught it. That was easy for Trevor, until Zoey intercepted the apple and ate it.

Erec barely noticed what was going on around him. All he could see was a scene from the future where Baskania captured the best friend he ever had.

 

June pulled a small silver ring out of a box. “Amazing,” she said. “Hard to believe this could actually work.”

Erec raised an eyebrow. “It better.” The little shining band did not inspire confidence.

“Don't worry,” June said. “Vulcan products always do what they're supposed to. It'll be interesting to see what happens. This”—she held out the ring—“makes a Substance Channel. The ring carves a wormhole into the Substance around us, and it can take you anywhere. You direct it as you go.” She turned the ring over and frowned. “Well,
you should be able to understand this better than anyone else. You can see the Substance when your dragon eyes are out.”

Erec nodded. His dragon eyes let him see the nets and webs that carried channels of magic all over and through the earth.

June rubbed the ring in her hands until it began to glow. Then she pulled, stretching it until it was bright and thin, like a glittering hoop for a circus animal to jump through.

“Ouch!” June jerked her hands away from the ring. It hung in the air, glimmering. She rubbed her hands together. “That felt like an electric shock.”

Erec pointed into it. “Am I supposed to climb through there?”

Suddenly, the ring began to spin. Soon it was whirling so fast that there was no way Erec could go near it. He was afraid it would slice into him if he touched it.

The faster the loop swirled in the air, the wavier it looked. Instead of a circle, it became ripply, glowing as it grew until it was Erec's size. Then it stopped suddenly and hung still. It was round again, but now it pulsed with greenish light. Erec carefully put a hand through the ring. An invisible force pulled his fingers, as if to guide him in.