Jane stood next to him, her mask a blank expression.
“Something is blocking the Chi’karda here,” she said, her raw voice sounding full of pain. “The closer we came to this place, the weaker it got. Neither one of us is completely sure what’s going on, but it does remind me of something we’d studied long ago . . .” She nodded to her left, and Tick looked in that direction.
The Grand Canyon. At least, a part of it.
A few hundred feet away, the flat land beneath them ended in the jagged lip of a cliff. Tick only knew this because beyond it was open air and the sight of canyon walls. A sea of stratified rock, layer upon layer, every shade of red and brown and creamy white. Gray clouds churned in the sky, thicker and more erratic over the abyss closest to them. There was a strange blue light reflecting off the bottoms of the boiling vapors of clouds.
“Go and have a look,” Jane said, her tone sad and filled with dread. “We wanted you to know what’s at stake.”
Tick knew he had no choice. Feeling as if someone had draped a hundred pounds of wet cotton across his shoulders, he started walking toward the upper edge of the looming cliff.
Chapter 55
Let’s Move
Sato fought furiously. Wielding a Shurric provided by one of his soldiers, he aimed and fired the thumps of sound energy at creatures as they came close, barely having enough time to see them catapult away before he had to do it again. And again. The monstrous forms from the Void were relentless and numerous, and they seemed to have no concept of death as they charged in. As each one died, they dissolved into a wispy stream of smoke and shot toward the sky. Up there, they joined their dead in a massive, churning pool of clouds. The bright blue streak of the floating river cut through the gray.
The Fifth Army had spread into battle formation, still braced in a rough circle around Master George and the others in order to protect them. Many of the fangen—or creatures that had once been fangen and had been transformed into something worse—leaped into the air and tried to fly toward the middle, as if they knew the precious lives that waited there. The heart of the Realitants, and maybe the last hope in defeating this indescribable new enemy of Voids and mist and thunder and blue light.
Sato’s soldiers kept steadfast, picking off the creatures one by one. But they kept coming.
They kept coming, and there was no end in sight.
Tick looked down into the valley of the canyon and couldn’t believe what his own eyes reported back to his brain. The assault on his senses made him think it couldn’t be real. So many things were going on at once, and none of them made much sense. A thick, pulsing streak of blue light cut through the middle of the air like a floating river, running the length of the canyon just as the real river made of water did. A battle raged down there, and it appeared to involve the Fifth Army, judging from the tall human figures standing their ground in a circular formation. They fought creatures of gray, Voids no doubt. When they died, wisps of smoky mist shot up from the ground like ghosts trailing gray rags until they reached—and joined—the churning storm clouds that hung over everything.
Tick reached for his Chi’karda again, and it was even weaker than before. There, for sure. But mostly blocked. He could pull it out if he wanted to, try to use it, but only a little would come out at a time. It’d be pointless. The strangeness of everything around him was also affecting Chi’karda. A scary thought—he already felt helpless enough.
“The situation is even worse than we thought.”
Jane’s voice made him jump. He turned to see her standing right behind him, the wind whipping at the folds of her hood and robe. Chu was right next to her. Tick had been so engrossed with the haunted vision before him—and the sounds of thunder, so loud—that he hadn’t noticed them creep up.
“What’s going on?” he asked, hoping for answers but knowing they didn’t have them.
“The Realities are being ripped apart,” Jane said. “Things have escalated.”
“Escalated?” Tick repeated. “I’d agree.”
Jane nodded. “This is why you need to work with us. Chu and I can stop this madness. With your help.”
“So you guys keep saying,” Tick said spitefully. “I’ll only promise to help if you promise to quit being so . . . evil.”
A look of hurt flashed across Mistress Jane’s mask, but it vanished quickly. Chu rolled his eyes and chuckled, a sound that was thankfully whipped away by a surge of wind.
“Your word means nothing to me anyway,” Tick said, hearing the defeat in his own voice. “I’ll do whatever I can to help stop this craziness. But I swear I won’t let either one of you hurt more people in the end. I won’t!”
Jane looked at him with hard eyes, glaring through the holes of her mask. “So are you committed then?”
Tick wanted to howl mean words at her, but he simply shouted, “Yes!”