The Secret of Ashona (5 page)

June dropped into a kitchen chair. “Did someone take him? Is he kidnapped?” Tears formed in her eyes. “I was afraid this might happen. Did you call the police yet?”

“Mom?” Erec was confused. “You thought Trevor might be kidnapped?”

“No—I mean, not now at least, or I wouldn’t have left him here. I was just worried about it. Of course. I mean . . .” She looked at Erec apprehensively.

“What? You mean what?”

June put her face in her hands. “We need to find him. And I don’t think the police will be of any help.” Her face crinkled and tears streamed down her cheeks. “I should have taken him with me. I should have been more careful. . . .”

“Mom—it’s okay. It’s not that bad. Trevor wasn’t kidnapped. Not exactly.”

Confusion wrinkled June’s brow. “What do you mean? Where is he?”

“Well . . . it’s not good.” He managed to calm his breathing so he could tell her about Tarvos, and that Trevor was still there.

June jumped up and immediately started pacing. Erec recognized that she was going into action mode. She raised a finger a few times before she spoke. “A bull? In a cave? I don’t understand. And you say you don’t know where you were? Show me where in the wall that hole opened up.”

Erec pointed to the spot and June felt for gaps, with no success. He hesitated a moment before dropping more terrible news, but he knew that he couldn’t keep it a secret for long. “Tarvos had brought me there because my soul is gone—at least most of it. The Furies still have it, so maybe I can get it back. That’s another reason I have to find them.”

June stared at him. “Your
soul
is gone? What are you talking about?” She rested her hand over her eyes for a minute, thinking. “Do you mean that when you gave your soul to the Furies so they could escape, you didn’t get it back again? I thought since the Hermit brought you back to life, you were back to normal. . . .” She eyed Erec critically from head to toe as if she might see his soul somewhere. “Could that be true? Do you feel different?”

“I feel the same—but Tarvos said that he could see that it was missing—and that I’ll turn evil if I don’t get it back. It’s one of the three thousand souls the Furies keep in some awful prison, feeling miserable.”

June winced, but then looked even more determined. “This is crazy. We have to find the Furies.” She took a breath. “And try to figure out where Tarvos’s cave might be. We need to go get Trevor out of there now.”

“I have no idea where we were. We just climbed there through the tunnel.”

June closed her eyes. “I’ll call King Piter and see if he knows anything about this.”

“Okay. And I’ll see if Bethany will come with me to find the Furies.”

June’s eyes narrowed. “You mean with
us
, right? Just because you’ve been off cavorting across the globe before doesn’t mean you can go on your own again. You understand?”

“Yeah. That’s fine.” Erec actually felt relieved that his mother was coming with him. It was too much to have the responsibility for rescuing Trevor all by himself. “We need to talk to the Fates at the Oracle and see where we can find the three Furies.”

“Good idea. I’ll call King Piter first.” She went down the hall to the computer that had the MagicNet loaded on it—their connection to the Kingdoms of the Keepers.

Erec sat on the couch and held up a pair of magical glasses that were on a chain around his neck. He carried them with him everywhere—they let him see the person that he was missing the most. And right now that was his friend Bethany.

He put the black plastic frames on his face. All of a sudden, everything glimmered brightly around him. It seemed like the room was moving, and it made him dizzy. He focused on the wall, and it was oddly rounded, shiny and clear. It took a moment before he realized that he was inside a giant bubble—or at least that’s where he was seeing that Bethany was. The shiny bubble wall was lined with a multitude of smaller bubbles, each shimmering with rainbow hues. Darker striped things on them were hard to make out, but on closer look they were books. Tons of books were everywhere, lining the bubble shelves.

It took a minute to find Bethany within all the wobbling, book-filled bubbles. She was sitting at a wooden desk that contrasted
strangely with the bubble room, scribbling on a pad of paper and furiously paging through a thick math book.

“Bethany?”

She dropped her pencil. “Erec? Is that you?” She searched all around, unable to see him—Erec’s glasses only let her hear him, even though he could see her.

“I’m here—I mean, I have my Seeing Eyeglasses on. Are you okay?”

“Hey, Erec! Yeah, I’m great.” She settled back in her chair, a smile appearing on her face. “This place is so cool. Queen Posey gave me a huge suite to stay in with a bunch of rooms and servants. It’s kind of like when I lived at King Piter’s castle.” Her eyes gleamed with excitement. “It’s been great having time to read and work on my new math book. This one disproves my last book, which is pretty neat ’cause it totally changes the whole basis of math. The upper-level topology was all wrong, but there was no way to show it by proofs. So now the time-space continuum can be seen more realistically . . .” She laughed. “I’m sorry. I could talk about this for days. How are things going at your mom’s place?”

“Terrible.” Erec told her about everything from the bullfighter to losing his soul. “I have to fix all of this right away. But if Tarvos is right, then I might turn evil at any time. You know me better than anyone—would you hang out and keep an eye on me? If I start acting weird you can let me know when I still am able to do something about it.”

“Of course! Oh, poor Trevor. We have to find him, fast. Do you have any ideas? I can’t believe he’s still in that cave! And your
soul
. . . This is awful.” A hopeful look crossed her face. “I’m really glad to help, and of course I’ll keep an eye on you if you want. But . . . is that the only reason you wanted me to come with you?”

Erec wondered what she might be thinking about. Why else
would he want to be with her? “No. I also need someone to hold in front of me in case the Furies attack.”

She laughed, and then blushed a little. “I thought so. Yeah, I’d love to go with you.” She crossed her arms and shivered. “I know you’re upset, but don’t worry. I’m sure this will all work out okay—it has to.” She laughed. “And I miss hanging out with you, too.”

Erec felt his own face turn red. He was glad that she couldn’t see him right then.

Jam Crinklecut, King Piter’s butler, followed Bethany through the Port-O-Door into Erec’s apartment. He bowed low when he saw Erec.

Bethany ran up and gave Erec a hug. “Jam said he’d come with us! This will be like old times, the three of us exploring the world together. . . .”

Jam blushed with pleasure, but June cleared her throat. “Not just the three of you. I’m here too, and the kids are out of school. So we’ll all be together this time.” She smiled at Jam. “It’s good to see you, Jam. Thanks for coming with us.”

Zoey ran up and hugged June’s leg. “Where do we get to go, Mommy?”

Erec frowned. “You’re bringing Zoey to find the Furies?”

June put her hands on her hips. “Of course not. For now we’re just going to talk to the Fates and find out what to do next, right? We’ll see what they say, and then I can decide what to do. King Piter didn’t have any idea where that cave might be.” She thought a moment. “Erec, do you think you can look through your Seeing Eyeglasses and talk to Trevor?”

“Great idea, Mom.” He sat on the couch and put the glasses on, concentrating on his brother. When he opened his eyes, he found the cave walls surrounding him. Before him, Tarvos sat on his giant
throne. Trevor squatted in a corner, pale arms tight around his knees. In between the bull and the boy, a young blond woman looked around herself in wonder. She squirmed, trying to pull her feet from the ground where they were stuck.

When she realized that she was trapped, she bared her teeth, hissing in anger at Tarvos. “What’s going on? Where am I? And where’s that little . . . bullfighter I followed down here?”

Tarvos laughed and leaned forward hungrily. The cranes preened on his back. “You belong to me now. And you will make a fine fighter when I am ready for you.”

Tarvos pointed a hoof at the woman’s face. She raised her hands to her head with a look of shock, then screamed as hundreds of cracks split deep through her skin. She looked like she was breaking into tiny pieces. At the same time she grew taller and heavier, her screech lowering into a deep, heavy moan, lower than a grown man’s voice. She kept expanding until her clothing shredded, revealing a chunky gray bricklike body. Clumps slid off her, hitting the floor and bursting into sprays of sand. Blond hair streamed onto the floor like hay, and her features flattened until only slits remained for her eyes and mouth in her blocklike face.

What had once been a woman looked down at her arms and body, unable to speak. A door slid open in the cave wall, and Tarvos motioned for her to go through. She mutely lumbered past the doorway, leaving behind a trail of sand.

CHAPTER THREE
Terrible Visions

S
WEAT DRIPPED DOWN
Erec’s face when he pulled off the glasses. That . . . thing was the Golem that Tarvos had tried to turn him into? A giant warrior made of sand?

“Is Trevor okay?” June was poised above him, a terrified look on her face.

“No . . . I mean . . . yes.” Erec tried to calm down, knowing he was frightening her. “He’s fine. I—I don’t think he’ll be hurt there.”

June didn’t look too sure. In a second she was already in the
Port-O-Door, pulling Zoey in behind her. “Let’s go, quick. I want him out of there now.”

“Modom, would you like me to wait here with Zoey? Or would you like to stay here with her? I will watch over these two.”

June looked back and forth between her daughter and Jam.

“What if Nell comes back here when we’re gone?” Erec asked.

June’s shoulders dropped. “What am I thinking? I’m so upset, I forgot all about Nell coming home. I’ll just call her now. . . . No.” She sighed. “I’ll stay here. You two will be fine with Jam. Just hurry back and let me know what is going on.”

“Okay, Mom.” He gave her a hug, and Jam and Bethany followed him into the Port-O-Door. They closed the vestibule door behind them and a screen lit up with four colored quadrants and an orange bar at the bottom labeled
UPPER EARTH
. He pressed the orange bar, and a world atlas sprang into view.

“The Oracle’s in Greece.” Erec tapped a finger on the eastern Mediterranean Sea and that part enlarged to fill the screen.

“There it is.” Bethany touched the city of Delphi, and when it enlarged she found Mount Parnassus. “The Oracle is right here. Remember?”

Erec did not want to think about the last time he had spoken to the three Fates at the Oracle—back then he had thought that Bethany was dead. But now poor Trevor might be soon if he didn’t work fast. He placed the Port-O-Door into a tree trunk near the base of the mountainside and swung the door open into the sunshine.

The Castilian spring that trickled from Mount Parnassus sprung into view as soon as they stepped out of the Port-O-Door. Erec took off running for it, hope building, but then his mind filled with questions. What would he find out from the Fates? They knew the future. What if they said that he could never talk to the Furies again? Then he would not be able to save his brother or his soul.

Which brought another thought into his mind. What about his other lost brother? And his missing sister? Now was the time to ask the Fates about them, too. Erec was one of King Piter’s triplets. His other two birth siblings were supposed to join him on his quests so that they could become the next three rulers of the Kingdoms of the Keepers. He needed to find them—they would help with everything that he was doing. It would be great to find his missing mother, too. Queen Hesti had disappeared at the same time as his siblings did, and he was raised by June, who used to be one of the castle nursemaids when Erec was little. The Fates knew everything, so maybe they could help. They usually didn’t mind telling him things—at least when they were in the right mood.