When the leading tips of the tornadoes touched down on the dusty, rocky floor of the canyon, a wild wind erupted. It ripped through the air, picking up dirt and pebbles as it went, coming at Mothball and the others like a wall. She could barely see through it or past it, but she noticed the funnels of the tornadoes joined together, creating one huge cyclone of gray.
Soon that wall of wind and debris burst over the soldiers then swept across the rest of them. Mothball shielded her eyes as it hit her and the others in the back. The wind was like a solid thing, a bubble of air that had a giving but strong membrane, pressing her against the hard rock of the cliff. George and Sally were next to her, fighting to breathe clean air.
Particles of dirt and dust beat at Mothball’s face, scratching across her skin. The fierce wind tore at her hair and clothes, seeming as if its force would rip all of it off and bury them in the solid rock. She screamed, but dust flew into her mouth, choking her and making her cough. She closed her lips and looked to the side. The hurricane blast didn’t stop—it just grew stronger and stronger. Pressed her harder and harder against the rock at her back. The world had become a haze of brown, swirling and churning.
It stopped without any warning.
The wind pulled back as if it were being sucked in by the gray cyclone like a giant vacuum. Mothball saw the visible wall of debris suddenly sweep away from her. Before long it was gone, completely, and the churning gray mass of fog and mist was lifting up from the ground. She thought it looked alive, and angry, being sucked toward the sky against its will. Even as she watched, it narrowed and compacted, rising, getting smaller and more tightly woven. Most of the others around her had recovered and were standing or sitting and observing the show. She felt Master George’s hand squeeze her upper arm.
“What . . .” she started to say, but stopped. Any question would be pointless. And George certainly didn’t try to answer. They watched, together.
A few seconds later, it became apparent what was happening. The fog and mist of the Void was being consumed by the floating river of blue light. Every drop of the gray mist whooshed into the still-throbbing blueness, disappearing as soon as it did so. The long sapphire streak across the sky didn’t change or grow thicker. It just kept pulsing, kept sucking up everything in sight. Not just the Void, but sticks and loose stones and any lingering clouds that had tried to stick to the sky. Mothball was surprised that she and the others hadn’t flown up with the rest of it.
And then, just like that, the air was clear. The only things visible above them were the strange river of blue light running between the walls of the canyon, and the gashes in the air that were like windows to other worlds. They hadn’t moved or changed, and there were probably a hundred of them that Mothball could see, all shapes and sizes. But the ground had quit shaking, and all the bending and twisting of Reality had stopped as well. The world seemed to have gone back to something a little more close to normal.
“I’ll be darned,” Sally said.
“That sums it up right nicely,” Mothball replied.
Master George was straightening himself, dusting off his clothes. The Barrier Wand lay on the ground, dull and dirty. “Let’s get upstairs straightaway. I hope Paul and Sofia have learned something valuable.”
Even Tick was out of breath when Jane finally called them to a halt. He figured he was younger and in better shape than the other two, but somehow they’d all kept up and together, although Chu was sucking wind, hard. Tick turned back to look at the canyon. There wasn’t a sign of any clouds or the gray mist of the Void anymore, but those rips in Reality that looked in on countless scenes and settings from all over still hung in the air like decorations.
“I think . . . we’ve gone far enough,” Jane said, her voice even more raw than usual with the heavy breathing that scoured her throat. “In fact . . . it’s odd. I can feel every ounce of my Chi’karda. And I don’t think it’s because of the distance we ran.”
Tick immediately probed his inner self and saw that she was right. His power was there, as strong as ever. “You mean whatever’s been blocking it is gone? What do you think happened?”
“Like I said, if it’s Karma, the force obeys its own rules. We need to wink to the Thirteenth before anything changes.”
Chu looked at Tick with narrowed, suspicious eyes. “I should’ve kept you in those bindings. We can’t trust you now.”
“We can trust him,” Jane said. “He knows he has no choice but to work with us right now. Ready yourselves—since I’m most familiar with the Thirteenth, I’ll wink all three of us there. I want us to be a nice, safe distance from the Void. And we will need time to meditate and regroup.”
“My people are ready when you’re ready,” Chu added.