The Rise of Nine

9

We’re at a gate. There is a narrow path beyond it and it goes straight up the mountain. Crayton asks me to cover the trail behind us while Six takes the lead with Commander Sharma. I wonder if his soldier’s betrayal has had any effect on him. I wonder if he will question the loyalty of his troops when he returns to his command. I can’t imagine asking him, not without somehow suggesting he should have known. Of course, maybe he should have.

I’m carrying the small tree branch from my Chest. I need to figure out what it does. The first time I’d held this – the first time I’d ever opened my Chest, back in Santa Teresa at the convent, when Adelina was still alive – I hadn’t had time to figure out what it did. But I did remember that when I’d held it out the window, I’d felt some kind of magnetic force. Almost instinctively, I rub its smooth, pared surface with my thumb. After a while, I notice it has an effect on the trees we pass. I aim and concentrate on what I want from the trees, and soon I hear the creaking of their roots and the clattering of their branches. I turn and walk backwards up the path, asking the trees on the edges to keep us safe, and they bend and twist into each other, making it impossible for anyone to follow. I want so much to be of help, I want so much not to be a curse, and to put my Inheritance to use to help us, that every time a tree responds a huge wave of relief washes over me.

We walk mostly in silence. At one point, to break up the boredom of the hike, I tickle Six’s face by lowering a branch right in front of her. She swats it away without breaking stride, too completely focused on what may lay ahead. As we walk I think about Six. About how fearless she was back with the soldiers. She’s always so calm, cool and collected. She takes command and makes decisions as if it were the most natural thing for her to do. One day I’ll be like her. I’m sure of it.

I wonder what Adelina would think of Six – and about me now. I wonder how much further along I’d be if she had trained me. I know all those years in the orphanage without guidance from her means I’m not where I should be. I’m not as strong and confident as Six. I’m not even as knowledgeable as Ella. I try to bury my resentment and focus on Adelina’s final act of honor. She charged at the Mog fearlessly, armed with just a kitchen knife. I try to stop the memory before I get to the part where she dies. I almost never do. If only I’d had the courage to fight alongside her, or knew then how to use my telekinesis to unwrap the Mogadorian’s hand from Adelina’s neck. If I had, she might be walking with us right now.

‘We rest here,’ the commander says, his voice breaking through my reverie. He points to a couple of flat boulders bathed in the afternoon sun. Just beyond the rocks I can see a small stream of fresh water. ‘Not long, however. We need to make a lot more progress up this mountain before nightfall.’ He looks up at the midafternoon sky.

‘Why? What happens at nightfall?’ Six asks.

‘Very strange things. Things you are not yet ready to see.’ Commander Sharma takes off his shoes and socks, rolls up the cuffs of his pants in a fussy sort of way and wades into the stream.

Crayton removes his shoes and socks too, and follows him. ‘You know, Commander, we’re already taking a pretty big leap of faith just following you up this mountain. The least you could do is answer our questions when we have them. We have a very important mission. And we deserve your respect.’

‘I do respect you, sir,’ he says. ‘But I follow Vishnu’s orders.’

Crayton shakes his head in frustration and walks further upstream. I notice Ella has wandered away and is sitting alone on one of the boulders by the stream. She’s been wearing the dark glasses from my Chest the entire hike, and she takes this moment to clean them carefully on her shirt. Seeing my gaze on her, she holds them out to me. ‘I’m sorry, Marina. I don’t know why I hung on to them. It’s just that –’

‘It’s okay, Ella. They helped you see that attack before any of us could. We may not know their full power, but you seem to be doing just fine with them.’

‘I guess so. I wonder if there’s anything more I can get them to do.’

‘What have you seen as we’ve been walking?’ Six asks.

‘Trees, trees and more trees,’ Ella says. ‘I keep waiting for something to happen, or to see something unusual. I wish I knew for sure this meant there is nothing for me to see.’ I can tell she is frustrated with herself, not the glasses.

With the small branch in my hand, I bend a large tree over to create shade on the boulders. ‘Well, keep trying.’

Ella holds the dark glasses up to the light. As she turns them over it’s almost as though I can read her thoughts, thanking me for making her feel like she’s part of the team, doing some good.

I look over at Six, who has stretched out on the ground. ‘What about you, Six?’ I ask. ‘You want to check out anything in my Chest?’

She stands, yawns and looks up the path. ‘I’m okay, I think. Maybe later.’

‘Sure,’ I say. I walk down to the stream and splash water on my face and on the back of my neck. Just as I’m about to take a drink, Commander Sharma wades out of the stream and says it’s time to go. We all get ready to continue up the mountain. I grab my Chest and balance its weight on my hip.

Immediately, the trail becomes much steeper. It’s also surprisingly slick and absent of rocks, as if this path had been recently washed clear by a storm. We’re all having difficulty keeping our footing. Crayton tries running to gain some momentum, but he slips and falls in the dirt.

‘This is impossible,’ he says, standing up and brushing himself off. ‘We’re going to need to cut through the forest to gain any kind of traction.’

‘Out of the question,’ the commander says, his arms out like a tightrope walker. ‘We will not conquer our obstacles by running away from them. Speed does not matter, just that we do not stop.’

‘It doesn’t matter how slowly we go? This message brought to you from the guy who says very strange things happen at nightfall,’ Six snorts. ‘I think you need to tell us how much further we have to go, and if it’s longer than three hours on foot, then I say we enter the forest and forgo these obstacles,’ she says, staring him down.

I look at the small branch in my hand and an idea comes to me. I concentrate on the trees around us, lowering branches in from both sides. Suddenly we have a way to pull ourselves upwards, rope climbing the Lorien way. ‘How about this?’ I ask.

Six grabs the line of branches and tests their strength, moving up a few feet. Over her shoulder, she yells, ‘Brilliant move, Marina! You rock!’

I continue to bend the trees as we climb. Still wearing the dark glasses, Ella watches the woods around us, occasionally glancing over her shoulder. Once the path levels out and it’s easier to maintain our footing, Six digs in and starts to run up the trail ahead of us, circling back regularly to report on what she’s seen ahead. Every time it’s the same: ‘It just keeps going.’ Finally, she returns to say there’s a fork up ahead. Hearing this, Commander Sharma looks confused and picks up the pace.

When we reach the fork in the dirt path, Commander Sharma frowns. ‘This is new.’

‘How can it be new?’ Crayton asks. ‘Both paths look exactly the same. Well traveled and equally so.’

The commander paces in front of the fork. ‘I promise you the path on the left did not exist before. We are very close to Vishnu. We go this way.’ He begins to walk confidently up the path to the right and Crayton follows.

‘Wait,’ Ella says, ‘I see nothing up ahead on the right. The glasses are just showing me dark emptiness.’

‘That’s all I need to hear,’ Six says.

‘No. We go right,’ the commander says to Six. ‘I’ve traveled this many times, my dear.’ Six pauses, then slowly turns to look at him.

‘Do not call me dear,’ Six warns.

As Commander Sharma and Six glare at each other my eyes are drawn to something scratched in the mouth of the path on the left. The figure is shallow and just a few inches long, and I have to look closely, but there is no question. It’s the number eight.

‘According to this, Ella’s right. We go left,’ I say, pointing at the number.

Six walks over to the markings and drags the toe of her shoe under the number eight. ‘Good eye, Marina.’ Crayton looks at it too, and smiles.

We fall back into our normal positions, with Six and a reluctant Commander Sharma up front and me taking up the rear. The path ascends slightly, turning rocky. Then, to everyone’s surprise, a steady stream of water begins to flow from ahead of us, down the trail. The rocks under our feet soon become tiny islands. I jump from one rock to another, but in a few minutes the rocks are submerged. All of a sudden, we’re walking through a river.

Ella is the first one to speak. ‘Maybe the glasses were wrong? Maybe this path wasn’t the right one after all.’

‘No. This is correct,’ the commander says, bending down to drag the tips of his fingers along the surface of the water. ‘This is a sign I’ve seen before.’ We have no idea what this cryptic comment means but we’ve gone this far, so we might as well keep going.

The river current becomes faster and it’s harder to move against it. We trudge higher up the path until the water is to Ella’s waist and I’m having trouble keeping my balance. But just as quickly as it began, the water slows and the land levels out and opens into a large pool of water. A jagged wall of stone stands high behind the pool, and four separate waterfalls descend from its top, crashing into the water.

‘What’s that?’ Ella points.

In the middle of the giant pool, a white boulder juts out of the surface. A gleaming blue statue of a crowned man with four arms rests atop the boulder.

‘The Almighty Lord Vishnu,’ Commander Sharma whispers.

‘Wait. That’s supposed to be Eight? A statue?’ Six says, turning to Crayton.

‘What’s he holding?’ Ella asks. I follow her gaze and see that there’s an object in each of his four hands: a pink flower, a white shell, a gold wand, and on the tip of one of his index fingers, a small blue disc that looks like a CD.

The commander wades further into the pool. He’s smiling and his hands are shaking. He turns to us. ‘Vishnu is the Supreme God. In his left hands, he holds a conch shell to show he has the power to create and maintain the universe, and under that is a mace to signify his power to destroy materialistic and demoniac tendencies. In his right hands are the chakra, to show he has a purified spiritual mind, below that there is the beautiful lotus flower.’

‘Which shows divine perfection and purity,’ Crayton adds.

‘Among other things, yes! That is right, Mr Crayton. Very good.’

I stare at the statue, at its serene blue face and gold crown and the objects in its hands, and I feel myself forgetting about everything else. About the battle at the base of the mountain and the carnage back in Spain. About Adelina and John Smith and Héctor. I forget about my Chest and Lorien and the fact that I’m standing in cold water. The energy flowing through me is magnificent. And judging by the peaceful looks on the faces of the others, the energy is contagious. I find myself closing my eyes and feeling blessed to be here.

‘Hey! He’s gone!’ Ella yells. My eyes snap open to see her whipping off the dark glasses. ‘Vishnu’s gone!’

She’s right – the white boulder in the middle of the lake is empty. I look at Six and Crayton and see they’re on high alert, ready for danger. I glance around us. What is this, a trap?

‘He will now test you,’ Commander Sharma says, interrupting my thoughts. He’s the only one among us who doesn’t look shocked by Vishnu’s disappearance. ‘That is why I have brought you here.’

We all see it at the same time. Something is blocking the sun on top of the jagged wall above the pool, and a long, oddly shaped shadow is cast along the water. A figure walks slowly along the ridge until it stands directly above the farthest of the four waterfalls on the left.

‘Commander?’ I ask. ‘Who is that?’

‘That is your first test,’ the commander says, stepping onto the grassy shore around the lake. We all follow, without taking our eyes off the figure.

A second later it dives gracefully off the cliff. I notice its legs are strangely short and it has a wide, circular torso. It falls slowly, almost floating, as if it can control gravity. When it breaks the surface of the pool, there is no splash. Not even a ripple. Six reaches up and squeezes the large blue pendant that hangs around her neck. Ella takes a few steps back, away from the lake.

‘This could be a trap,’ Crayton says quietly, voicing my fear. ‘Prepare to fight.’

Six lets the pendant drop from her hands and rubs her palms together. I set my Chest down and begin to mimick her movements, but I feel ridiculous and glance around as surreptitiously as I can to see if anyone noticed. Good thing they are otherwise occupied. Fact is, Six knows how to fight, has trained for this her entire life. Everything she does has a purpose. I’m just rubbing my hands together. I slowly lower my hands back to my side.

‘He’ll test you one at a time,’ says the commander. Six snorts.

‘You don’t make the rules. Not for us,’ Six says. She turns to Crayton, who nods.

‘Commander, this is not what we came here to do,’ Crayton adds. ‘We came here to find our friend, not to be tested or to fight.’

Commander Sharma ignores him, walks into a patch of short grass and sits. I never would have taken him for a guy who could pretzel himself into the lotus position. ‘It must be one at a time,’ he says serenely.

The being – or whatever it is – that dived into the lake is still underwater. And I’m the only one with the Legacy to meet it down there. I know what I have to do. Still, I’m surprised to hear the words come out of my mouth. ‘I’ll go first.’

I look over at Six. She nods at me and I dive into the lake. The cool water becomes darker the deeper I swim. My eyes are open, and at first I can only see a few inches of murky water in front of me. But my eyes soon adjust and my vision penetrates far into the lake, my ability to see in the dark coming in handy. I allow the water to enter my lungs, and a familiar calm sweeps over me. I start breathing normally, letting my Legacy take over.

I reach the muddy bottom and spin around, looking in every direction for the thing that dived from the cliff. Something moves over my right shoulder, and I turn to see a figure coming at me. He’s wearing a golden crown over his short, jet-black hair. His eyebrows are perfect semicircles, and his nose is pierced with a gold ring. He is strangely beautiful. I can’t take my eyes off him.

I stand perfectly still, waiting to see what he wants. He comes closer. When he gets within a few feet of me and I can see him more clearly, my jaw drops. What I thought was a strangely circular torso is, in fact, the body of a turtle. I’m mesmerized, watching to see what he will do next. So much so, I’m taken by surprise when he lunges towards me and hits me with his two right arms.

I go spiraling backwards, the force propelling me with a speed that stuns me. But I’m not in motion for long. My feet quickly find the muddy bottom and I twist around in a panic, trying to find him in the darkness, my senses on alert and on guard. Something taps my shoulder and I turn to see the blue turtle man. Damn, he moves fast. He winks at me, then swings both of his left arms, but this time I’m ready for him. I raise my forearm and knee in time to block them. Then I plant the bottom of my foot squarely on his chest and kick as hard as I can. I flip over and come at him from the back, wrapping my arms around his neck, and look around for something, anything, I can use as a weapon. I see a large rock sticking out of the mud in front of us, and I use my telekinesis to send it at this alien turtle, using all of my strength to pull it through the water. He sees the rock coming and when it’s within inches of hitting him, he just disappears. Poof. The rock smashes me instead and I fall back in the mud.

I lie there dazed, waiting for him to appear again, but he doesn’t come. Eventually, I decide to float to the top.

The first thing I see as I break the surface is Six, standing at the edge of the water, looking for me. ‘What happened?’ she calls.

‘She passed.’ Commander Sharma nods.

‘You okay?’ Ella shouts. ‘I couldn’t see anything through the glasses.’

‘I’m good,’ I yell back. And I really am.

‘What do you mean, she passed?’ Crayton demands of the commander. ‘That was one of his tests?’

The commander just smiles serenely and ignores Crayton.

‘Okay, who’s next?’ Treading water, my eyes follow the commander’s finger high over my head. I turn to see a shadowy figure up on the jagged wall again. This time he’s a giant bearded man with an axe in his hand.

Six wades into the water up to her knees as I climb out, wringing water out of my long, dark hair. She is all steely determination and confidence when she says, ‘Me.’

The figure walks to the third waterfall and dives. This time he makes a massive splash when he hits the pool. We can see the ripple on the surface of the water as he moves towards Six under water. Then the tip of his axe comes out of the lake, followed by his giant head. Six doesn’t flinch, doesn’t change expression at all, even when he’s fully emerged and stands at least four feet taller than her in the shallow water at the edge of the lake.

With a grunt and a howl, the giant swings the axe. Six leaps out of the way but before he can pull back, she kicks at the wooden handle, breaking it in half.

‘Way to go, Six!’ Ella yells.

The giant swings a fist at her, which she easily avoids with a bob and a weave. With the next beat, she lands a quick kick to his kneecap. As the giant bends over and howls in pain, Six grabs the end of the broken axe handle as it floats by and swings it at his head. The being disappears before it hits him.

‘What the hell was that?’ Six asks, whipping her head around wildly, on the alert for any kind of reappearance.

Commander Sharma smiles placidly. This guy is really starting to make me angry. ‘That was another test, which you passed. There is one more.’

Before anyone can speak, we hear a roar. I reel back with horror at the creature I see emerging from the water. It’s over ten feet tall and has the head of a lion and the body of a man. It has five muscular arms flexed at each of its sides. The creature shakes the water from its mane as it steps onto the shore and marches towards Ella, unleashing a second roar.

‘Oh. My. God,’ Ella says, mouth open and eyes wide.

‘No,’ Crayton says, stepping in front of Ella. ‘You’re not ready for this – it’s too much.’

Ella rests a hand on Crayton’s arm. A small smile breaks across Ella’s face and she seems to transform from a scared kid into a Garde prepared to fight. ‘It’s okay. I can do this.’

Six comes to my side. We’re both ready to fight if Ella needs us. The creature moves towards her; she slides my glasses back onto her face. Then, it attacks.

The creature swings all ten arms at Ella, but she ducks and avoids each one. It’s as if Ella sees every punch before it happens. The tree behind her ends up taking the beating. Large chunks of wood fly around her, hitting the creature’s face, bouncing off its chest. Not running away but not fighting back either, Ella circles the tree trunk, continuing to dodge the ten fists. The tree is getting pummeled.

Suddenly, Ella screams. ‘Oh no! What have I done?’

Before I can figure out what Ella means, there’s a loud crack and the heavy tree trunk tips forward. It’s about to crush the creature when the figure disappears just like all the others. As the tree continues its fall to the ground, a branch swipes the dark glasses off Ella’s face and they are crushed by a huge tree branch. ‘Marina, I’m so sorry! I knew the glasses were going to be broken, but I couldn’t do anything to stop it.’

Crayton, Six, and I run over to Ella, who’s staring in horror at the fragments of the glasses by her feet. ‘Ella! Don’t worry about the glasses. You held your own and that thing disappeared. What’s important is that you’re okay. I’m so proud of you,’ I tell her.

‘Ella, that was amazing!’ says Six.

‘Congratulations,’ the commander says, still sitting calmly, Buddha-like. ‘You have just defeated three of Vishnu’s avatars. You’ve passed his test. The first was Kurma, a half man, half tortoise who churned the ancient ocean so that other peaceful gods could regain immortality. The man with the axe was Parashurama, the first warrior saint. The last was one of the most powerful incarnations of Vishnu, the man-lion, Narismha. Now, we await Vishnu’s arrival.’

‘We’re done waiting,’ says Crayton, turning to the commander, jaw set and fists clenched by his side. ‘He’d better show himself and fast.’

‘Chill, chill, chill,’ a boy’s voice says, emerging from the high grass behind me. ‘The commander was just following my orders. I was being cautious.’

From the grass we now see the statue of Vishnu step towards us, alive and smiling.

‘I’ve been waiting a long time to meet you.’