And maybe he was: drowning in a river of time.
His boyish cry gave way to a baby’s wail.
Jake lifted his stone from the floor and stood up.
More wails joined Kree in a chorus. All across the floor, mewling naked babies rested in beds of black robes.
Jake turned, fearing for Marika and Bach’uuk. But as he had planned, both of his friends had their hands locked atop their respective crystals. Earlier, the emerald had protected him from the ruby’s spell, and the stones had done the same now for his friends.
Overhead, the giant crystal sphere continued to crackle with lightning and churn wildly. The three spheres looked close to breaking apart and shattering into the room.
Jake didn’t have much time.
He rushed to the triangle, dropped to both knees, and shoved the fist-sized sapphire timestone into the third and final cup. It took a huge effort. The three friends fought together. Their combined will and strength slowly wore down the force resisting them. Millimeter by millimeter, each of their stones sank toward the bronze receptacles.
Then finally, the resistance gave out, as if the force surrendered. Jake’s crystal snapped from his fingers and clanged into place, echoed twice more from the other two corners of the triangles.
But a fourth was still to come.
A deafening clang, like a hammer shattering a crystal gong, coming from above, shook the room. Jake’s hair whooshed straight up, dancing on end. The same fate befell Marika and Bach’uuk.
Jake sat back, looking up—as crackles of blue fire poured from the crystal heart and filled the dome above.
“Get out!” he yelled, and began crab-crawling away, still staring up.
But he was too slow.
The fire swirled across the roof and got sucked back into the crystal. The sphere now shone like a sun, so bright that Jake had to shield his eyes. But even such a huge stone could not hold that much power. The energy seeped down into the archway, turning the metal into a mirror again. Images flashed across its surface, too swift for the eye to hold. The metal began to tremble as energy continued to pour into it.
Jake felt a pressure building in his chest, sensing that pent-up power was going to blow.
“Get down!” he screamed, and waved everyone to lie flat.
As he turned away, an image froze for a fraction of a second in the mirror. It was his own face swelled large—except that his eyes blazed with black fire. Then the image was gone. He glanced to Marika and Bach’uuk. With their faces to the floor, they hadn’t seen it.
Despairing, he sprawled on his chest and covered his head.
What did that mean? Was it the future, a warning?
Then all thought vanished as a blast exploded behind them. The shock wave hit, shoving them a few feet across the floor—then it was gone, leaving only the squalling of babies.
Jake rolled over. The crystal heart now spun calmly, glowing softly. The archway had partly crumbled, littering the floor with stone blocks. At its foot, the timestones still glowed in the triangle, but they’d melted smooth to the floor.
“That can’t be,” Marika said, scooting up.
Jake knew what filled her words with amazement. Beyond the archway, a familiar sight appeared in the mirror. It was a wide courtyard, shining under a full moon, with a castle in the background and a giant tree in the center.
“It’s Kalakryss,” Marika said.
They all ran forward. What was the mirror showing them now? Marika, ever quick on her feet, reached it first. She held out her arms, preparing to stop herself, but instead she kept running—and fell straight through the mirror and into the courtyard of the castle of Kalakryss in Calypsos.
Stunned, she stumbled several feet before she could stop herself. She turned a full circle. “I’m home!” she said, full of delight.
“How?” Jake asked, struggling to understand. He waved his hand where the mirror once stood. Nothing was there.
Bach’uuk sighed. “Time is broken.”
Jake stared hard at his friend. Bach’uuk gave him a look as if the answer should be obvious. Jake crinkled his brow, remembering what his mother had said.
The alchemy here is potent, warping both time and space. Such an act will forever damage the time component.
Jake slowly understood—or he hoped he did. Their actions must have shattered the Atlantean mechanism’s control over time. But as his mother had said, this device warped both time and space. He stared at the portal into the courtyard of the castle of Kalakryss. With the bridge across time broken, all of the energy in the crystal heart must have built a bridge across space instead.
A bridge to Calypsos.
“But why there?” Jake mumbled.
Bach’uuk shrugged.
Was it because Marika and Bach’uuk were from there? Did that influence where the bridge would end? Or had Oolof—knowing people from Calypsos would be coming—tuned the stones to specifically open there?
Jake suspected he would never know.
He stepped to the doorway, noting the timestones. From the way they were melted into place, it looked as if this portal was fixed forever, opening only to Calypsos.
Marika came rushing back, her eyes dancing with happiness.
But the blare of horns reached them. They all stared toward the pyramid’s exit. They’d temporarily forgotten that they were in the middle of a war. With the barge in the air, the spell cast by the sapphire stone could not reach it. An entire enemy battleship still hovered outside their door.
As they listened, more horns blew.
What was going on?
Jake turned to Marika. “Go fetch your father! Raise the alarm!”
He pictured an army of hostile Egyptians flooding through this portal into the heart of Calypsos.
“C’mon,” he said to Bach’uuk.
Together, they fled across the chamber, dodging babies underfoot, and up the far tunnel. Jake skidded out the exit to the first step. The royal barge, blazing with torches, still floated above the square—but now seven other, smaller ships surrounded it.
As Jake watched, weapons were tossed over the rail of the barge. Swords rained down from above and clattered to the stone floor. A triumphant bugling rose from the surrounding ships.
Closer by, a force of men stormed up the steps toward them.
In the lead was a familiar figure.
“Djer!” Jake yelled.
Bloody and battered, he lifted an arm and gave a tired salute with his sword. The rebellion in Ka-Tor must have been successful. With one victory under their belt, they must have flown here to help.
Jake hurried down to meet them, anxious to hear what had happened, and even more concerned about the fate of Kady. The worry on his face must have been plain.