Free Crystal Doors #1 by Kevin J. Anderson, Rebecca Moesta Page A

a long polished wooden staff. One end was pointed like a spear, while the other end was crowned with a polished stone as large as a billiard ball, adjacent to a curved hook. The girl jabbed her spear into the water, lifted it out dripping a mixture of sea water and red fluid. Blood? A gray torpedolike snout rose out of the water andopened a huge maw of sharp teeth. The girl twirled the staff and brought it down with a hard smack.
    “We’ve got to save her. Those look like sharks!” Vic said. “We, uh, didn’t happen to bring any weapons, did we?”
    Sharif cast him a haughty glance. “We have speed. That will have to do for now.”
    The bedraggled survivor did not panic as she fought. Vic didn’t think she had seen her rescuers coming yet. Sharif glided to a spot above the girl whose arm still hugged the floating yardarm. Their appearance scattered the prowling sharks. The waterlogged survivor looked up at them, her large eyes drooping with utter weariness. Vic could see sharp fins cutting the water as the startled sharks immediately began circling back in.
    Sharif brought the magic carpet low, and Vic leaned over the edge, reaching out to take the girl’s outstretched hand. “I hope this thing doesn’t tip over. Come on!”
    With lithe grace, the survivor pulled herself out of the water as the sharks approached. She kicked off against the slippery floating yardarm for leverage, pushed with the wooden staff in her other hand, and sprawled across Sharif’s embroidered carpet.
    Three angry sharks raced in with open jaws, but Sharif had already touched the golden threads, and the carpet ascended out of reach of the snapping teeth.
    As if it were a perfectly normal occurrence to be picked up by a piece of flying cloth, the bedraggled dark-skinned girl pulled her lean legs onto the carpet, arranged herself at the center so as not to overbalance them, and laid the woodenstaff across her lap. Panting and dripping and weary beyond words, she looked at her two rescuers. “Thank you,” the girl said in a hoarse, parched voice.
    “We, uh, thought you might like a lift,” Vic said.
    “I will repay your kindness. And your names will be added to the Great Epic.”

12
     
    THE SOLE SURVIVOR’S NAME was Tiaret. A rangy girl from a place called “Afirik,” she was no more than a year older than Gwen and Vic. Her eyes were an amazing amber color, like those of a lioness, and she wore short animal pelts that hugged her muscular body like a second skin. When Vic and Sharif returned with her, Gwen thought the two young men looked insufferably pleased with themselves, though she had to admit to a bit of admiration for the rescue.
    Everyone gathered in Elantya’s main water-clock square to hear the weary girl’s story. Tiaret clutched her battered-looking staff, as if ready to keep fighting. Her eyes swept around the square; she seemed as intrigued by the crowd and the city as they were with the exotic newcomer.
    Already alerted to the emergency, the five members of the Pentumvirate hurried from their council chambers. Gwenwatched the colorfully robed representatives march together down the sloping streets, escorted by functionaries and advisors.
    “Pentumvirate members are called virs,” Lyssandra whispered quickly as they took seats on curved stone benches near the trickling water clock. “Each wears a bright color — yellow, blue, red, green, or white — that corresponds to one of the five elements.”
    “Five
elements? There are over a hundred on the periodic table. My chemistry teacher made us memorize them.”
    “No, only five: earth, air, fire, water, and spirit,” Lyssandra said.
    “Then what about nitrogen, helium, iron, sodium — all those?”
    The elfin girl’s expression turned thoughtful. “In studying a thing too closely, one may see more details but gain little understanding.”
    Obviously the translator did not consider that society on Earth might be more sophisticated and advanced than in Elantya.