“Here’s what we don’t know. We conjecture that even though the thought-worms enter through the ear, it’s possible they get in another way too.

  “We don’t know how Abbadon is getting them here. What’s the mode of delivery? How come some people are infected, and others aren’t? We don’t know how to kill them. We don’t know how to get them out of an infected person, without killing the person.”

  Niko paused and looked around the room. None of us moved. It sounded hopeless. How were we supposed to stop something we knew so little about?

  “Well, what was the big plan that Pita mentioned?” John asked, almost as sarcastically as he had been earlier that day.

  “I think you have seen the results of what the Ginete and Whistle Pigs have accomplished so far, John. Without them, we wouldn’t know anything at all. We wouldn’t know that the thought-worms existed, nor would we be able to test people to be sure they are safe.

  “While they were finding all that out, what were we doing? We were waiting for the information. We need to give Pita and Teddy our thanks, not our scorn.

  “And to make that more imperative, we believe that it is possible that rifts between people, or within themselves, make us more attractive to the thought-worms. Easier to manipulate. Therefore I stress that we remain calm and supportive of everyone, at all times.

  “You can see that the Ginete are not here,” Niko continued. “That’s because they are busy preparing the next phase. They have not stopped working on the way to destroy Deadsweep before it’s too late.”

  “What is the next phase?” I asked, sparing John the embarrassment of being the only one who asked the questions. Besides, I could see that he was still seething over Niko’s response. However, I knew Niko was right. We needed to heal all rifts. I trusted that his brother, James, would help John. I thought John was so scared he didn’t know what else to do but act out.

  Niko’s face hardened as he answered my question. “Tomorrow morning most of us will be leaving the Castle. After being tested, more people will be let into the Castle. Then the doors will be closed again.

  “A few Whistle Pigs will stay to maintain drone stations. They will need them just in case they need to test someone in the Castle. This decision is more for peace of mind than the belief that someone here will be infected later.

  “Since we don’t know how Deadsweep thought-worms are transmitted, everything that comes into the Castle will be monitored. There won’t be much to track because the Castle is self-contained. Little, if anything, will be coming in. However, if something shows up, all of us will be alerted.

  “In the meantime, some of us are heading back to Dalry to try and determine what the three men had in common.”

  Niko paused and looked towards Suzanne.

  “Thank you, Niko,” Suzanne said, taking over. “The dragons have brought bad news. Terrible news. There is unrest in every village that they have flown over.”

  “Which means every village is infected?” John shouted.

  “It means that in all the villages that they have seen, someone is infected. We can see the results of the fighting, and people are staying out of their gardens and the streets.”

  Beru and the four men from their village stood up together. “Our village?” Beru asked for them all.

  “Yes, we saw evidence of violence in Kinver, which is why the five of you and a Whistle Pig will be returning to Kinver in a Sound Bubble tomorrow. We’ll be sending you with the drone that can check people, so you can isolate those that are infected from those that aren’t.”

  “We can’t send people everywhere, so we are concentrating on just a few villages. Kinver, Dalry, and Eiddwen. Dragons will be watching over each town, and there will be a drone for each group.

  “Eiddwen was closed down the minute you left, Kara Beth. So far there is no sign of the infection, but we are in touch with Berta at all times, and she will let us know at the first sign. I sent a dragon to her yesterday with the drone and earplugs.

  “Oh yes, earplugs. Although the thought-worms may be entering through other places than the ears, we do have a fairly invisible plug for everyone to wear in your ears. It’s almost the same technology as the ear muffs had been. You will hear just fine, but nothing can get inside your ears.”

  “What if it’s not through the ears?” I asked.

  “That’s why no one sleeps alone. We would notice if something crawled on us while we are awake. So while you sleep, someone else is going to be watching you at all times.”

  When Suzanne said that Eiddwen was safe, at least for now, I had collapsed back on my seat. I hadn’t realized how frightened I had been that my father and all the lovely people I had met were in danger, or infected. It was such a relief I almost didn’t hear Suzanne say Berta’s name. It took a beat before I realized what she said.

  “So Berta has been in touch with you all this time? Even while I was there?”

  “Of course,” Suzanne laughed. “Do you think we would have left you undefended or us out of touch for even a minute?”

  If things weren’t such a mess, I probably would have indulged a moment of pouting, but I managed to collect myself and act more like a grownup before anyone noticed except for Zeid who gave a soft snort. I tried one of Beru’s looks on him, but that only made him snort again.

  Niko stepped to the front of the room again. “What we haven’t talked about yet is how we are going to subdue the villagers fighting each other. We have to do it without hurting anyone. And we will have to contain them. And feed them. And hope they don’t die before we discover how to get the thought-worms out.”

  “How big a problem is this?” Zeid asked.

  “In Dalry, almost everyone is fighting each other. There are only a few pockets where people are hiding from their own family and friends. It’s bad. In the few days we have been gone, something happened. We need to find out what and how as quickly as possible.

  “The enemy that we will be fighting are our own people. Just as Abbadon wanted it to be.”

  Thirty-Nine

  The sun was just coming up over the horizon, a few rays hitting the top floors of the atrium. We were all waiting for the Sound Bubble. James, John, Thomas, and Mark stood together, James with his arm around John’s shoulder. They looked frightened but determined.

  Beru was with me. We had stepped behind one of the enormous ferns, and I was sobbing. Beru was doing her best to comfort me, but she was torn between leaving me and knowing she had to go to the Kinver.

  The people in Kinver had not listened to her when she had told them about the Shrieks and Shatterskin. Later, the villagers had learned that she was right and stepped up to help fight. Beru hoped that they would listen to her and the brothers now as they attempted to protect the villagers against themselves.

  If there were only a few infected people in the town, Beru and the brothers would use the other townspeople’s help to isolate the infected ones, and then use the gas that the Ginete had prepared to keep them subdued until we could find a cure.

  If Kinver was engulfed with violence, the only choice they had was to get the ones who were not yet infected back to the relative safety of the Castle, using the Sound Bubbles.

  “Don’t cry, Kara Beth,” Beru said, “We’ll be fine. It won’t be long until we meet again. Besides, we’ll be able to talk all the time on the channels that Professor Link has set up.”

  I nodded and hugged her close, and she let me, resting her head on my shoulder. A few moments later we heard the beautiful harmony of the Sound Bubble coming closer. We walked hand in hand out to join everyone else and then, wiggling her fingers at me, Beru went to stand with the brothers and a Whistle Pig named Pete. Pete carried a bag which I knew contained the drone and the gas. I had already sobbed on James’ shoulder. He too had promised me that he and his family would be safe.

  The glass ceiling opened and the bubble slowly descended. It is hard to feel anything but joy when the Sound Bubble arrives. It lowered itself and surrounded all six of them within seconds, paused, and lifted off. I waved until the bubble had risen out of sight and the ceiling had closed. I didn’t care that tears were still streaming down my face. I had learned that tears were a good thing, and just because I had tears on my face didn’t mean that I wasn’t ready.

  The next to leave were Suzanne and Aki. They were going to Eiddwen. I hugged them both goodbye, not stopping to think that Aki had never hugged me before. I knew Aki had skills I had not yet experienced. I knew she could take care of herself. But I needed her to know how much she meant to me, so I had hugged her as hard as I could.

  Aki was riding Suzanne, as Lady the dragon, to Eiddwen to assist Berta with the village. The first thing they were going to do was test my father, King Darius. If he were free of the Deadsweep, they would put him into a Sound Bubble and return him to the Castle. That was the plan. He wasn’t going to be given a chance to say no.

  There was a side benefit. Perhaps being in the Castle with his people would rouse my father from the depression he had fallen into. Leif had said he would help, and I had a feeling a little wizard magic might be just what my father needed.

  Leif and Sarah had appeared in time to say goodbye to everyone. They were staying in the Castle with Link. Link needed to be safe to keep all our channels open. Leif and Sarah could be wherever they were required at any moment, but staying in the Castle meant they could help with the crowds of people who would be arriving, and help keep order. And of course, support the Ginete and Whistle Pigs who were staying behind. They would be using the information that we would send back to find the answers to all the questions we still had.

  We still needed to know how the thought-worms were getting from town to town. We needed to know how to stop them from entering the brain and how to remove them from everyone that has already been infected.

  The teams going out into the towns would be doing crowd control and information gathering, but it was the people back in the Castle who were going to discover how to stop Deadsweep from taking over the Kingdom of Zerenity.

  Suzanne stepped into a clearing in the atrium and transformed into Lady. It never failed to amaze me. One second she was the beautiful Suzanne, and the next she was a beautiful pileated dragon. She was still Suzanne, but also Lady the dragon. A dragon that had grown big enough to carry a person, or two, or three.

  Aki climbed onto Lady’s back. Aki carried a drone and the gas in a backpack. Link wanted to send a Whistle Pig with them, but Aki said they would be fine,. And, besides, a Whistle Pig riding a dragon wasn’t going to happen. Both Lady and the Whistle Pig agreed with that decision.

  Aki’s eyes grew dark, the ceiling opened, and they were off. Watching them leave, I remembered that Suzanne had hinted there were other shapeshifters in Erda, and I wondered if I would meet them soon.

  Beside me, I heard Professor Link whisper, “God speed.” I had a feeling that he was directing that wish to Aki more than anyone else, and I wondered if there was something more going on between the two of them than just friendship.

  If Beru had been there, she would have pinched my leg to make sure I didn’t say anything. Instead, this time it was Zeid who pinched me, which startled me so much I jumped a little, but no one seemed to notice. Everyone had too many tears in their eyes to see anything.

  Forty

  After everyone had gone, those of us who were left had one last meeting with Link. Niko, Zeid, Ruta, and I were going to Dalry. It was where the dragons had reported the most violence, and Link wanted to go over a few things with us before we headed out.

  He reminded us that our main job was to find a connection between the three men, and to extract the remaining unaffected people from the village without getting hurt ourselves, or harming anyone.

  There was one more thing that I was supposed to do. I was to try out using my bracelet. Sarah had shown me what my mother used to do with it, but there had been no time to practice.

  Everyone going to Dalry had seen the bracelet in action when my mother used it. Why she didn’t have it on her when she went to visit Ruta’s village no one would ever know. However, I knew that everyone assumed she wanted to make sure her daughter, me, had it in case she never came back.

  Mom had given it to Link right after they sent me to the Earth dimension. She had asked him to give it to me as soon as I returned to Erda. At the time, no one knew I would forget all my magic skills and would have to rediscover them. I think my mother thought I would put it on, and boom, I would be able to help save the Kingdom with it. After all, I was her daughter. It didn’t happen.

  Once Sarah realized that I needed help accessing what it could do and that I was ready to learn, she stepped in to teach me. Sarah projected pictures of my mother practicing with the bracelet. Like the skills that Niko taught, no one thought about using magic as a defense or as a weapon until Abbadon decided to take over the world. Watching my Erda mother, Rowena, practice, I knew she had been practicing for fun, with no thought it would be necessary for defending anything.

  Knowing I would never see her again, and that her final wishes were for me to be happy and safe, was hard for me. Watching her had been both devastating and exciting. It was in her memory that I would use the bracelet. And like her, only for good.

  The picture jasper stone in the bracelet depicted a tree, and it was the powers of trees and stones that I was going to call upon. Picture jasper is valued for its deep connection to the earth. After all, it was the pressures and the forces of the planet that formed the picture found in the stone.

  The stone itself symbolizes nurturing and protection, while the tree is the provider of all the things that life needs in Erda. The two of them together plus what Sarah was teaching me, would be very helpful during our mission to Dalry. That is, if I could make it work.

  If all else failed, I could shoot lightning bolts and fireballs, but I wasn’t sure either of those would be useful except for maybe as scare tactics to get people to listen. I didn’t think that the thought-worms were going to turn and run away from me because of the lightning display. Although I did love the picture of those little worms slithering as fast as possible to their destruction.

  Link also reminded me of the button that I wore. If I was in trouble, I was to push it. He held both my hands and looked me straight in the eyes as he reminded me once again that the Kingdom of Zerenity needed a leader, I was not to be taking any chances. I did my best to nod as if I agreed, but I wasn’t sure that I did.

  However, I knew that Zeid had been told to push the button if I didn’t. Because even though I knew what Link told me was true, I wasn’t sure I was ever going to be able to make that choice. Save myself at the expense of someone else? I didn’t think I could do that.

  Cahir was traveling with us. He and his wolf pack friends would help round people up if necessary. I hoped it wouldn’t be, but I was happy that he would be walking with me for a while at least.

  That left the Priscillas. Having recovered from their depression, which had turned out to be worry that they were infected, they were flitting around all of us as we made our plans. They wanted to go with me. At first Link and Niko said no, but when it became apparent that they would sneak off anyway, it was agreed that we could take them with us. I was delighted, and a little worried.

  Although there was no evidence that the thought-worms had any use for fairy brains—so they probably weren’t in danger that way—it was the violent crowds that had me worried. However, the Priscillas agreed to stay out of harm’s way. They also argued that of all of us, they were most likely to see where the worms were coming from. Plus, they said they had a secret weapon that they would engage when we were ready.

  Remembering the insects the Priscillas had recruited that had done the final job of eliminating the Shrieks, I thought that perhaps they had something like that up their sleeve that might save the day. I couldn’t wait to see what they were planning.

  The Ginete and the remaining Whistle Pigs were returning to their underground laboratory to take the bits of evidence that we would find and turn them into something useful for stopping Deadsweep.

  Before Pita and Teddy left, they came over and each said good luck in their own way. Teddy swept me up in his massive arms and called me Warrior Princess. Pita patted me on the head and winked at me. They were the heroes in all of this. Without them, everything we did would mean nothing.

  Finally, all the goodbyes were said. I grabbed my favorite walking stick as the ground opened up below us and the five of us dropped down into the underground transportation room. Even Cahir dropped with us. Zut, he was not happy. He started howling the minute we began to fall, and he didn’t stop howling until we had returned to top side outside of the Castle. He shook himself and went off into the woods. He didn’t come back to walk with me for a few minutes.

  “Sorry,” I projected to Cahir on his return.

  “Necessary, but awful,” Cahir projected back.

  That pretty much summed up what we were doing. Necessary, but awful. I hoped that the awful wouldn’t be too bad. But, it was.

  Forty-One

  We could hear Dalry long before we saw it. The noise was worse than anything I had ever heard. You’d think that the shrieking from the Shrieks would be at the top of the list and it was, but nothing sounded worse than what we could hear, because it was not a machine. It was human voices raised in anger and fright.