A few cluster by Anthony, surprising me by saying things like ‘glad to have you with us’ or commenting his presence makes them feel more confident. Okay, when did my fifteen-year-old (soon to be sixteen-year-old) become Master Chief?

  Whoa, Mom, says Tammy in my head. Did you just make a Halo reference?

  I think I did. I smile at her.

  Since when do you play video games?

  I don’t. But I’ve seen your brother play Halo often enough to make a joke about it.

  By the way... many of them see Anthony has something... greater.

  Greater how?

  I’ll tell you later.

  Why not now?

  Because it’s starting...

  What’s start—

  My thoughts are cut off as the wizards, alchemists, or whatever they are, begin chanting. Allison does as well, reading from a little card Max must’ve given her. Speaking of Max, he walks around the interior of the circle, sprinkling powdered gold and silver into the lines of the ritual circle.

  A few minutes go by of chanting and drawing magical symbols on the ground in powder.

  Anthony walks up to the edge of the circle for no particular reason, standing there like he’s posing for a Superman movie poster.

  What the heck is he doing?

  Mom, he’s not sure either. Just felt like he needed to help.

  Help? Your brother’s no magic-user.

  Tammy gives me a blank look. Ant doesn’t know either. He’s got this weird idea, like he can help open the portal if he wants it to open. He’s kinda just standing there wanting the portal to work.

  Okay, power of hope, I suppose?

  Maybe.

  Max backs out of the circle to join the ring of Light Warriors. He pulls a gold coin from his pocket and flips it into the air, away from him. The coin flies into the circle, stopping in midair at the center, where it continues spinning, faster and faster until it looks like a tiny ball. Yellow lightning crackles from the spinning coin. The golden orb rapidly expands to the width of a bus, then hollows out to a thin ring surrounding a pale sandy-brown haze. The blur sharpens to a flickering image of the desert, like one of those ancient hand-crank movie machines with the paper cards.

  Gradually, the shifting effect stops. It’s like watching a 1920s television image morph into modern high-definition, one of those screens so real you’d swear you could walk right into the scene. Only, here, we can walk into the scene. Warm air blows out of the opening, tossing hair and fabric about.

  Well, heck. It worked. Here we go.

  Anthony’s the first to move, striding across the ritual circle and into the opening. Despite her worry, Tammy drags me forward, not wanting to be separated from her brother. I walk through, holding her hand, Kingsley right behind us.

  Even though I’m still wearing the snowflake-sun amulet. Max gave it to me for protection against Alaska’s cold, but it will also keep me cooler in a scorching desert. I get a brief blast of hot due to the sudden transition of environments before the enchanted item compensates and it feels like I’m once again at comfortable room temperature.

  Ahead of me, rippling beige sand stretches all the way to the horizon, becoming a dune sea toward the left but staying relatively flat on the right. A large shape darkens the horizon in the blurry distance at a two-o’clock position. It’s gotta be miles away, and huge. The generally pyramid-like form makes me think human-made rather than mountain.

  I twist to look behind me, surveying the land. Allison, Max, and the rest of the Light Warriors step through the portal. More dune sea surrounds us to the rear, hazed by the shadow of a mountain range much farther away than the ‘pyramid.’ No signs of life, civilization, or Elizabeth are anywhere in sight.

  “Wow, it’s hot here,” says Tammy. “Ant, I swear, if you say ‘yeah, but it’s a dry heat’ I’m going to slap you.”

  He smiles cheesily. “Well, it is dry here. Venezuela was humid.”

  “Oh, interesting.” Allison nudges me with her elbow, then shows me her iPhone. “Still kinda works, but I’m not getting a signal. It’s 107 degrees.”

  Tammy groans at the temperature.

  “Your fault for wearing black shirts all the time,” says Anthony to Tammy.

  “Bite me.”

  Not sure if watching them act like kids is comforting or surreal considering where we are and why we’re here. I point to Allie’s phone. “So, why are you shocked it works?”

  She shrugs. “Well, I kinda wondered if this being a primitive world with more magic than Earth might cause technology to stop working.”

  Max, standing next to Allison, chuckles. “The laws of reality do not change quite so drastically within the third dimension. Simply because they have not developed technology here does not mean technological items cannot work… but I do not think you’ll find a place to plug it in.”

  Allison smiles. “Figured that.”

  “No tracks,” says Kingsley, pointing at the ground. He raises his head, sniffing. “I don’t smell them either.”

  “She’s far away,” reports my daughter. “I’ll shield us again the closer we get.”

  “What is this place?” asks a male Light Warrior.

  Max waves for everyone to gather around him. “As some of you already know, Elizabeth has chosen this dimension to invade. From what I have been able to determine thus far, it is highly similar to our world as it existed somewhere between two and three-thousand years ago. It is difficult to draw an exact comparison due to certain differences in our worlds. For example, magic is far more prevalent here. It most certainly has affected the development of their civilization in ways we did not experience.”

  Murmurs and nods come from the group.

  Max holds up a hand-drawn map depicting continents, but they don’t have any similarity in shape to the Earth I know. “We are presently in a region corresponding to what would be Egypt in our world.”

  “Explains the pyramid,” says Tammy.

  “But we’re not in Egypt.” Max smiles at her. “Our position on the globe is roughly equivalent. This is the region of the world with the most people and the most advanced civilization. It is no surprise she chose this place as it presents the quickest route to establishing an empire comparable to Ancient Rome.”

  “Rome fell, though,” says a woman in a brown robe.

  “Indeed.” Max nods at her. “However, Rome was not under the control of a psychotic dark master with a small army of immortal warriors.”

  A Japanese woman, also wearing a brown robe, lowers an honest-to-God spyglass from her eye and points. “There’s a huge city in that direction, with a pyramid at the center.”

  Kingsley tugs at his collar, sweating like hell. As soon as I notice him overheating, Allison gets the hint over our mind link. She stops playing with her phone long enough to cast the same spell on him, herself, and the kids, she used to keep everyone from freezing in Alaska. She just reversed the effect... cooling rather than warming. If I’d known she could do that, I wouldn’t have pestered Max for this amulet… but then again, a bit of jewelry is a lot easier to carry in my pocket than Allison Lopez.

  Magic like that just seems so damn beyond me.

  Anyway, Kingsley immediately looks relieved, and finger-shoots Allison a thank you. She grins and shoots him back. Anthony doesn’t look much different, truth be known. My son has a sort of weird, zen-like expression on his face... like not much will bother him, especially not heat.

  Meanwhile, Max approaches the Japanese woman. She hands him the spyglass, waiting beside him while he surveys the distant city for a minute or two before returning it. “This is the spot Elizabeth’s portal touched. She will most certainly have gone to the city. It is indeed massive.”

  “How didn’t they all burn to death?” asks Tammy. “And there’s no tracks.”

  “Footprints do not last long in the desert, child,” says Max. “Wind erases them in hours. I suspect it had been dark here when they arrived. Probably a calculated move on her part. Easier to move around in the coolness of night.”

  Tammy glances at me. He called me ‘child,’ but I’m eighteen now. Should I have a tantrum or ignore it?

  Feeling the intended joke on the thought wave she sent, I chuckle. He could call my grandfather’s grandfather ‘child’ and still be correct.

  Oh. Duh. Right. I forgot how old he really is.

  Seriously.

  Tammy bites her lip. He’s kinda hot.

  I stare at her. You did not…

  Come on, Mom. Look at him. Right up there with Zac Efron. I love his blue—huh? Are his eyes are green? I swear they were blue a second ago.

  They change color.

  Whoa. Oh, crap. They’re violet now.

  And stop crushing on Archibald Maximus.

  Dammit, Mom! You ruined it.

  What?

  She faces me, arms out to either side. Archibald? Seriously? That is like the most unsexy name ever.

  Great. First an elf, now Max. My daughter has a thing for older men. Way older.

  She blushes. Mom! Kai is my age, just in elf years.

  Yeah, that’s going to get real awkward in a couple decades.

  “We should get moving. Bad enough we’re out here in the sun already.” Max gestures at the distant city.

  The portal behind us picks that moment to close.

  We all stand there watching it shrink from a giant ten-foot disc down to a pinpoint. It took a little self-control not to dive through at the last second. Not much. Just a teeny amount. More like an instinctual reaction to jump off a sinking ship rather than go down with it. Again, who wants to be stranded in another reality? I wouldn’t be human if self-preservation didn’t at least emit an easily ignored squeak of protest in the back of my mind.

  Honestly, I got the same twinge the few times I had to interview an inmate at a prison back in HUD. A door closing behind me that I can’t open freaks me out. Hate feeling trapped. Anyway, Max and his people opened the gateway once, they can do it again—provided we’re alive to leave.

  Tammy gurgles. Stop thinking bad thoughts!

  Max takes the lead, as casually as if desert hiking used to be a hobby of his. It’s hard to wrap my brain around how long he’s been alive. Back when Elizabeth had been a mortal human, maybe they did live in the desert. Sebastian’s dark master is from Egypt. The mermaid Kingsley told me about… her dark master is from the same area, too. From like the year 30 A.D. or something ridiculous like that. Guess the Ancient Egyptians had a lot of people into blood magic who became dark masters.

  We walk for a little over an hour before we spot the wreckage of a large creature-drawn wagon of some type in the sand ahead. Any variation in the scenery is super obvious since we’re surrounded by the same pale sand. Increasingly taller dunes are to our left; mostly flat, rippled sand to the right. No sign of a coast or end to the desert in sight.

  Several bodies lay partially buried around the smashed wagon, but no tracks or footprints give any indication of what happened here. The wagon’s about the size of a school bus, but uncovered. Considering it’s empty, my guess is it belonged to a trader of some kind and bandits raided it to steal the merchandise.

  Max and the Light Warriors head over to the bodies.

  Tammy averts her eyes, not wanting to see dead people, but relaxes once it becomes obvious the corpses are nothing but bones. Their clothing, mostly white or pale brown loose-fitting tunics, thawbs, or robes, is astonishingly free of bloodstains. Stylistically, they’re a cross between ancient Arabia and Camelot.

  Anthony jogs over to us holding something that looks like a lightsaber handle. “Hey, check this out.”

  Kingsley raises both eyebrows.

  My son looks at the end while picking at a green gem on the side, suspiciously similar to a button.

  “Don’t look directly at it!” yells Tammy. “If that’s a laser sword, you’re going to… put your eye out.”

  Anthony aims the device away from himself and pushes the gem. Nothing appears to happen until he tilts it upward. The front end now glows, but the light’s too weak to really notice in the desert daytime.

  “Flashlight?” suggests Tammy.

  “Yeah. Looks like it. But, there’s no light bulb.” He pushes the gem again, effectively turning it off, and tosses it to Tammy.

  I slide over and take a look. The front end of the device is a smooth, mirror-finished bowl. As far as I can tell, nothing in it is capable of producing light.

  “Whoa.” Tammy pushes the gem, once again causing a tiny cloud of glowing energy to appear.

  “Yeah, that’s a flashlight all right.” Kingsley scratches his head. “At least in function. A touch different than our world.”

  Anthony wags his eyebrows. “Don’t you mean a torch different?”

  Kingsley pinches the bridge of his nose and groans.

  “Huh?” Tammy scrunches her face at him. “It’s a flashlight, not a torch.”

  “We were just in London. They call ’em torches there,” says Anthony.

  I groan. Tammy merely sighs.

  Max approaches us, carrying a bundle of fabric. “Here. You may wish to change into these so you don’t stand out so much.”

  “Eww!” Tammy backs up. “Dead people wore those.”

  “It will not do us any good to advertise we have come from another place.” Max sets the bundle on the ground in front of us. “If Elizabeth has spies around the city, they will know we’re here as soon as they see your modern clothes.”

  I’m about to remark about him and all the Light Warriors, but their outfits are not as obvious as ours. Some are already wearing robes, the rest dressed somewhere between Indiana Jones and Allan Quartermain. They still look out of place here but not as obvious as logo T-shirts, jeans, and sneakers.

  Allison and I sort the pile, laying each piece out on the sand. She uses magic to mend various slashes as well as holes likely from arrows (or crossbow bolts).

  “This is beyond weird. There’s bad energy in these,” says Allison. “I think I know why none of this stuff has blood on it.”

  “Do tell?” Kingsley sniffs a thawb. “Doesn’t smell like blood, but I’m getting a note of decay. Darn. Now I’m hungry.”

  Tammy grimaces, looking nauseated.

  “I think these people were killed by magic that caused their bodies to decay instantly,” says Allison.

  “You want me to wear clothes that people died in and like rotted in seconds?” Tammy shivers. “Umm, no.”

  “We have to, Tam.” Anthony play-punches her shoulder. “If they suspect we’re from Earth, we could get caught.”

  “Eww. Eww. Eww.” Tammy hugs herself. “I’d rather strip and wear illusions than something rotting corpses touched.”

  “Relax.” Allison smiles up at her. “I’m magically cleaning them now.”

  “You can do that?”

  “No. But I thought it would make you feel better.”

  Tammy pouts. “I hate you.”

  Since we’ve got magic keeping us comfortable from the heat, we pull the native clothes on over our modern attire for now. Anthony puts on a tunic that stops halfway to his knees, then discreetly pulls his jeans off. I pull a robe on, as do Allison and Tammy—reluctantly. Kingsley, unconcerned with who sees what, strips down to his boxers and pulls on a thawb. His suit, all of our shoes, and Ant’s jeans go into a large brown sack for now. Wearing the leather sandals of a dead guy is a bit bizarre, but Nikes would be a dead giveaway we’re not from around here.

  A few of Max’s people with less time-period-ambiguous clothing grab the remaining cloaks.

  Tammy looks over at me. Is this place going to be dangerous for us, since we’re women?

  I’m not sure. Relax. I’m not going to let anyone mistreat you. Or me. Or Allison.

  She exhales shakily, but nods.

  Anthony walks around in a circle, acclimating himself to wearing a tunic and sandals. “Feels like we’re in a movie or something. Hope there aren’t any mummies out here.”

  “Could be,” says Max from a distance off, still examining smashed boxes. “Until we understand the extent to which magic is prevalent in this dimension, anything is possible within reason.”

  The Alchemists urge us to resume walking since there’s nothing else worth salvaging. Whoever attacked the wagon stole everything, even the animals used to pull it. Everything is gone, except the one flashlight and the corpses.

  “Ma?” Anthony walks up beside me. “Is this what it felt like when you got stuck in Talos’s world?”

  “No… not exactly.” I smile. “Well, both places had tons of sand, but this is actually much nicer.”

  “Really?” He blinks. “How can anything be better than a world full of dragons?”

  I laugh at his innocence. “Well, for starters, I don’t have a constant fear of disintegration.”

  “Always a plus,” calls Max from the front of the line.

  “And we don’t have to worry about dragons trying to eat us.” Tammy gives me a ‘yikes’ look. She saw my memory of those razekh creatures… the dumber dragons only about as smart as dogs.

  Max holds a finger up. “Be wary of speaking too soon. We do not yet know if this world has dragons or not.”

  Kingsley tosses and catches the magical flashlight. “And they make these things with magic. Who knows what we’re going to find here.”

  “Eep,” whispers Tammy.

  Anthony puts an arm around my and Tammy’s shoulders, walking between us. “We’re doing the right thing, Ma. I got a feeling we need to be here.”

  “Glad someone’s feeling confident,” mutters Tammy.

  “I’m confident, too,” I say. “It’s possible to be confident while appreciating the risks.”

  Anthony squeezes us a little tighter before letting his arms drop. “Not sure how to describe it, but I got this feeling something’s big’s gonna happen. Not necessarily bad. Just big.”

  I sigh. Truth is, I have the same feeling.

  What that something is remains to be seen.

  Chapter Three

  Blending In

  When we come within about three miles of the city, Tammy takes off her amulet and concentrates. She’s not going all trancelike and weird though.