Free Jake Ransom and the Skull King's Shadow by James Rollins

its body. Some kind of field seemed to restrain it.
    Jake fell back, getting a good look at the creature. Thrashing limbs ended in claws. Razored spurs decorated knee and elbow. But its face was the worst of all—not because it was monstrous with its porcine nose and fanged maw, but because it was too human. Jake read the intelligence in its agonized eyes. That gaze focused on him, intently, as if recognizing him.
    Then with a final screeching cry, the grakyl battered back against the force that held it trapped. It twisted away from the Broken Gate, wings beating desperately. Once well enough away, it finally seemed to catch a bit of wind and flew a crooked path back into the forest.
    At his side, Marika let out a long rattling sigh. Her eyes tracked the creature, making sure it had truly departed. Finally she turned away. “A grakyl,” she mumbled again. The fear in her voice was still there, but now it was threaded with elation and a trace of amazement. “I never saw one before…only drawings…from stories.”
    “But what the heck was it?” Kady asked, pushing forward.
    Marika finally seemed to notice that she still held Jake’s wrist. She pulled her fingers away.
    Pindor answered Kady’s question. His voice dropped to a whisper, his eyes on the sky. “A grakyl. They’re the cursed beasts of Kalverum Rex. The Skull King. His slaves. They—”
    Marika cut him off. “We should be going. The sun’s already dropping low.”
    Jake rubbed his wrist where Marika had gripped him.He remembered the pricking burn as he neared the far side of the Broken Gate. Jake sensed that if Marika hadn’t grabbed him, he might have ended the same as the creature. Unable to pass.
    Had it been some form of invisible wall? A defense to keep anything from passing over the ridge? Jake studied the towers. While the stones did seem to be volcanic, no mortar glued them together. Instead they were fitted together in a complex pattern, a jigsaw puzzle made of stone. Jake also noted faint writing in bands along the tower on the left.

    It wasn’t like any writing he’d ever seen.
    Before he could study it further, Marika headed down the trail away from the gate.
    Jake had no choice but to follow.
    Past the towers, a huge valley opened. Steep cliffs surrounded the valley in a continuous circular ridge. The valley looked like a meteor crater, but Jake noted vents dotting the edges, steaming with sulfurous gases.
    No, it wasn’t a meteor crater.
    The valley was the cone of a massive volcano.
    And it wasn’t empty.
     
    “What is that place down there?” Kady finally asked.
    Jake had the same question as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. Far below, a good section of the valley floor had been cleared of trees and spread outward in a patchwork of tilled fields and orchards. The open lands all surrounded a sprawling city of stone buildings and timbered lodges.
    From the distance, there seemed no rhyme or reason to the place’s layout. To one side rose what appeared to be a medieval castle. But beyond that, carved into the far ridge, were tiers of cliff-dwelling homes, similar to ones Jake had visited in the deserts of New Mexico. And was that an Egyptian obelisk rising out of a town square? It looked like a miniature Washington Monument but was topped by a scarab beetle, the ancient Egyptian symbol for the rising sun.
    It made no sense.
    “Calypsos,” Marika said proudly. “Our home.”
    She began to head down the gentler slope on a narrow road of crushed gravel.
    “Hold on,” Jake said, struggling to find words to voice the sheer volume of his confusion. “How…Where…?”
    Pindor headed after Marika. “You’ll get your answers in Calypsos.” His words almost sounded like a threat.
    “Wait,” Jake continued, needing something, anything.“You’re Roman, aren’t you?”
    The boy straightened his toga. “Of course. Are you calling my heritage into doubt?”
    “No, no…” In a hurry, Jake turned to the girl. “And