The Secret of Ashona (13 page)

Erec grew alarmed as he stared down at the boy. The boy looked exactly like he did, except that Erec was looking from the outside instead of into a mirror. Reality did not sink in immediately, as the concept was too strange to grasp. How could this boy look so much like he did? How did he get here?

Cold fear grasped Erec as he looked into the boy’s eyes. They stared uncomprehending, glassy. He was dead. It took another moment for him to put two and two together. It was
him
lying there, wasn’t it? The Fates said that he would die from this quest. The Diamond Mind took the last bit of his soul—he was sure that was the pain that he had felt. And then it had taken Erec’s life, too. Isn’t that what it said that it would do? He was dead. . . .

But at the same time, Erec felt completely alive. He was floating, somehow, over his body. He reached down to it, trying to feel the chest for a heartbeat. His own arm, the one he was using now to reach, was perfectly visible to him, so he wasn’t gone. He was still there. . . . There were two of him, then? When his hand touched the body’s chest, he could feel clammy skin, hard bones, and warm, wet insides. Before Erec realized it, his hand had reached through the clothing and straight inside of the dead body.

Erec jumped, shuddering, whisking his hand out of his own corpse. He was surprised and relieved that there was no blood on his hand, but none of this made sense. Why was he able to pass his hand
deep inside of the body? And why could he still see himself here if he was dead?

Just to make sure he wasn’t imagining things, he tentatively reached toward the body again. Eyes closed, he felt inside its squishy wetness. There was nothing but stillness. No heart beating.

In fact, thinking of that, he could feel that his own heart was not beating either. There was a strange stillness inside of him now. No stomach rumbles. No pounding pulse, or rush of adrenaline, even though he was quite alarmed. The strangest thing of all was realizing that he wasn’t breathing. It was disconcerting. The regular, rhythmic in and out through his chest had been comforting, even if he had never thought of it that way before. In fact, it felt as if he was there, but at the same time, he wasn’t.

But there was something else, too. Being still a moment, Erec noticed something he had never felt before. It was a sense of knowledge or understanding that wasn’t there when he was alive. Erec realized that he didn’t have to feel inside of the body to know that it was dead. He could tell that just by sensing the space around him. It was as plain as day. All he had to do was pay attention and things seemed to spell themselves out for him. For one, he was a ghost. That is why two of him were together in that small space. The boy lying dead on the floor was his body, the shell of what he used to be.

But his new self was much better, smarter, and wiser. Like a newborn discovering himself for the first time in a new world, Erec looked around the pit in wonder. As a ghost, he had a sense of purpose that he had never felt before, a need to move forward and meet the three Furies as he had planned. And doing so no longer intimidated him. It was as if all of the knowledge in the world was now available to him if he wanted it. The Diamond Mind next to him was transparent—in this new state Erec could read its thoughts. In
fact, the thing was staring at him in fear and shock.

Erec’s mind functioned more sharply than before. Everything was crystal clear. The Diamond Mind had done him a favor—he would be able to meet the Furies now that he didn’t have a human body to drag along. But, ironically, the Diamond Mind was feeling guilty now about killing him.

Erec was surprised—the creature was torn in conflict. Of all the people that it had killed, none had become a ghost before its eyes as Erec did. And seeing that frightened it. As much as it knew about people, it knew nothing at all about ghosts. Fearing that Erec would take revenge, the Diamond Mind began to feel bad that it had taken Erec’s life to begin with. It was chastising itself for being selfish and stupid, then stopping and justifying what it had done so it felt better. It was odd for Erec to be able to hear the thing’s thoughts as easily as if it were speaking out loud.

But just as Erec could hear the creature’s thoughts, he also felt like he understood them, and he knew what the truth was. It was amazing—being a ghost gave him so much insight. He remembered talking to Spartacus Kilroy, his old friend and King Piter’s AdviSeer, after he had become a ghost. It had seemed that he had known everything then. Now he understood. . . .

“You shouldn’t worry about it,” he told the Diamond Mind. “I don’t want revenge. I’m not even angry—you’ve actually helped me to meet the Furies. And don’t worry about being selfish. You’re not—for a Diamond Mind, anyway. You are who you are, and you have tried to be the best at what you know. The Fates had to isolate all of you, taking away your freedom, but they could not help that either. You are stuck here in a bad situation. So cut yourself some slack, okay?”

The Diamond Mind sounded meek, its voice trembling. “Thank you. I guess I was blaming myself a bit. Are you sure you’re not angry, g-ghost?”

Erec laughed. “Not at all. When I was alive I wouldn’t have believed this, but being dead seems like no big deal.”

“Of all of the people I have . . . killed here, I have never seen one become a ghost.”

“I know. Most people just move on. Only the few with something important to take care of stay.”

The Diamond Mind spoke with wonder. “Do you know what will happen when you meet the three Furies?”

Erec thought a moment. “No, I don’t. I can’t read into the future.” He wondered if he still had his dragon eyes, but could not sense them. When he tried to roll his eyes back to see if they would come forward, nothing happened. It was slightly disappointing, but all of his dragon parts had stayed with his human body. In this new form, though, he was able to do different things. For one, he had a better connection to the Substance, so magic would be a lot easier. Erec pointed at his old body lying on the ground, and a blue haze immediately surrounded it. “That will protect it until I’m back again. Would you keep an eye on it here for me, then?”

“Oh, yes. I’d be honored. Sorry again for any problems caused by your . . . death.”

“It’s fine. I’ll be back for that little bit of my soul that you are keeping too.” Erec smiled. It was time to go find the Furies now. The Fates had said they were in the Gray Mist Valley, in Alsatia. He had to get there by falling into Mercy’s Spike in Pinefort Jungle in Otherness. Erec was delighted to realize that instead of his old human cluelessness about where things were, he now had a perfect sense of direction. He knew he could find his way to Pinefort Jungle just using his senses. Not bad, he thought.

Now, to get out of this steep hole . . . There were no ladders, and the Diamond Mind would not make a very good trampoline. On a whim, he bent his knees and reached high, springing up into the air.
The slight push of his feet against the ground was enough to catapult him skyward. In fact, he continued to soar through the air well after he was out of the tunnel. Fifty feet up . . . one hundred . . . two hundred. As the holes and stone columns began to look small beneath him, he started to feel concerned. Would he ever stop?

Erec must have been two thousand feet up, and he was still going. He felt perfectly fine—breathing was not an issue anymore—and he knew there was no danger of hurting himself if he fell. But how would he turn and go back down? There was nothing to push off of.

In a moment of calm focus, the answer came to him. Experimenting, Erec did a few flips in the air, then used his arms and legs to push against the thin atmosphere as if he were in a pool. He stopped, and after doing it again, reversed directions and headed back to Earth slowly. Interesting, he thought. Apparently he needed only a tiny push to move far.

In a while he touched down again, close to the hole from which he had sprung. He could tell already that this was going to be a very interesting journey.

CHAPTER SEVEN
Alsatia

I
T WAS EASY
to remember the way back to the Port-O-Door. Erec turned the knob and it flew open, but then he realized it was easier to pass right through the wood. Once he was inside, he pulled up the map of Otherness. In moments he spotted Argquard in the northernmost part of Otherness, which he knew was the region he was looking for. Once he tapped the map there, Pinefort Jungle filled most of the upper part of Argquard. Zooming in closer, Erec scanned an area that he knew would house Mercy’s Spike, and there it was. No problem.

Moments later, Erec was through the Port-O-Door in the dense forests of Argquard. Strange creatures trotted around the forest floor, springing up and flying overhead. They were Ligwiths—Erec knew all about them with his new ghostly insight. The tall red birds with long legs were able to crumple themselves into compact balls at will. Some whizzed by Erec’s head in ball form, and others kicked and batted the ball-shaped ones around, playing some incomprehensible game.

Erec knew the way to Mercy’s Spike. It was not far, as he had parked the Port-O-Door in the perfect spot in a large tree trunk nearby. It was a challenge at first to learn to walk without bounding too far forward or springing too high in the air, but it didn’t take long to master. If he tapped his toes down softly and moved his legs back and forth he didn’t even have to touch the ground most of the time. It wasn’t too hard to stay close enough that nobody would notice—his aim had become nearly exact. Later, when he was around people, he would need to look like everyone else, not shooting twenty feet into the air.

Mercy’s Spike was a sharp needle-shaped rock formation that projected ten feet into the air from the top of a plateau. Erec’s senses told him that it had been used for ritual sacrifices by clans of the past. Above it was another plateau, about fifty feet higher, at the edge of a mountainside. When someone jumped off of the top plateau and fell straight down, they would land right on the spike, impaling themselves on it.

The ceremonies must have been pretty dramatic, Erec thought, watching people sacrifice themselves this way. It was a shame that people used to believe that angry gods wanted them to kill off their friends and neighbors. But something strange had happened to the people who died this way. Almost as if the ancient religions were true, instead of dying a normal death these people’s spirits were transported to a place known as Alsatia.

Erec pushed his toes softly against the ground and flew into the air. When he reached the higher plateau he waved his arms gracefully against the air and landed again.

It was nice to know so many things now that he was a ghost. Like the fact that Alsatia was a land from before time, when the earth was still young. It was a place of strong power, a haven for those in need. The Furies used it now as their home, but it had been used by others before who were in need of protection. Living humans could never get there, only spirits and magical beings.

Erec had a brief moment of fright, looking at the sharp spike looming below him. But he realized that jumping would not propel him to the ground—he would have to work to make himself fall. And impaling himself would not hurt one bit. Even then, Erec hesitated a moment. It was hard to shake the human memory of what his body would feel like if it was speared down the middle. He passed his own arms through himself a few times for reassurance, then leaned forward, arms out. Waving slightly, he pushed himself toward the spike. As it came closer, he adjusted his position and direction so that it would pass through his midsection.

Mercy’s Spike impaled Erec’s chest right where his heart rested, and it tunneled through the shadow of his body. Unlike humans who had probably stopped from the friction of the rock by about this point, Erec continued to slide farther down the spike, slowing and stopping midway to the ground.

For a moment he waited to be whisked away to Alsatia. Nothing happened. He hoped that it was not only the living who were able to use this spike as a transport there . . . but then again the Fates had told him that this would work—and he could sense it himself as well. What Erec did not know, what seemed unknowable, was what the Furies would decide to do with him once he arrived. Their minds were out of his grasp.