Anansi's Web

When I woke up Cara was cutting away the last pieces of her hair until it just reached her shoulders. Somehow it looked even messier than before. She sat there twirling random strands as she observed herself in a personal mirror that I guess she found here.

“You almost look like a different person.” I said.

Cara turned around, her eyes were flooding with uneasiness, and her expression was almost apologetic. “Does it look good? I’m not sure, and I need your opinion.”

“Yeah, it’s different but I like it.”

She sighed, and went back to looking at herself in the mirror. “You look different too.” She said. “But it actually looks more natural. So that’s good I guess.”

“Why do I look different?”

Cara turned around; the hint of a grin was on her face. “Oh right, you don’t know yet. How do you feel about the color green?”

I sat there puzzled for a second until I realized what she meant. My hand reflexively reached for my hair, like feeling it was the same as seeing it, but I realized that I needed a mirror. Cara showed me her mirror, and my hair wasn’t green; it was actually brown, the natural color. I dyed it blonde because my friend Ria convinced me it would look good. I always wondered what I would look like if I kept my brown hair, and honestly it didn’t look so bad. It matched my brown eyes.

“I like it. We almost match.” Cara said.

“I guess…but why did you change it anyway? And why did you cut your hair?”

“Ember and I were talking about the gremlin. We’re gonna go and tell the king about it after she finishes with her look. We changed it so we won’t be recognized if something bad does happen.”

“It makes sense…but you could have told me.”

“Hey, it’s not my fault you’re a heavy sleeper, I tried to tell you but you groaned, and I did it anyway…sorry if you don’t like it.”

“No, it’s okay. So what does Ember look like?” I asked with a grin.

“Same, but with blue contacts, and she made her hair look more curly. She’s putting the contacts in now.”

Ember walked out of the bathroom with curly locks of hair that hung from her head. Her purple eyes still seemed to burn through the contacts, it looked like a thin layer of blue over a harsh purple.

“It’s only temporary until we get out of the castle. Get ready you two.”

“We don’t look that different though.” I said as I got up, and picked out my clothes.

“I know, I just wanted to do something to hide ourselves. It’s short notice, but not bad.”

“I was just thinking if you’re going to change how we look then go all out.” I said.

“How? Magic can do a lot, but it can’t change appearances completely, and to change them a little bit takes constant energy.”

With that I finished getting ready. When we were all done, we called the servant, and asked him to escort us there. It would be a twenty minute wait for him. He was still rude, cutting the conversation early.

Maybe after we talk to the king I can go into the backyard, and play with the soccer ball some more. I was looking for some alone time to get away from everything for a while. I just needed to breathe.

“Hey Ember, what happened with the queen? I forgot to ask yesterday” Cara said.

“Oh, I talked about that strange woman who gave us the stone, and then we talked about why I had the emerald tablet. She just told me some more stuff about what’s going on around the country.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“Well, you guy’s heard about the prince that disappeared a few weeks ago right? The queen was talking about the failed investigation. The people are kind of relieved though because the majority was going to vote him away from becoming king, but since he’s gone missing there’s been trouble making decisions, but you two don’t need to worry, these things have a way of solving themselves.”

“Yeah, I did hear about that.” I said.

“Things are getting difficult, but like I said, all things end eventually, no matter how long the road seems. Peace is as persistent as chaos.”

BWOOOOM!

Outside of the door there was a sound like cinderblocks shifting around. I also heard a sound like metal scraping metal, and…were there lasers outside?

Everyone was still until the noises stopped. This could not be good. “I think curse was just put on the castle. A nasty one.”

“What did it do?” Cara asked. Sheer terror froze the room in a nerve racking silence.

“I can’t tell…I’m not going to open the door, we’ll stay in here.”

Beep, beep…beep, beep. The phone rang throughout the room. Ember slowly walked over to it, and picked it up. “Hello?”

Her face tightened in confusion. “Okay…yeah, we’re fine. Shifted? Yes, it’s a curse. I believe we can take care of ourselves, I… Alright sir.”

Ember hung up. Before she could say anything the door opened in a green flash.

Blinking red lights that filled the hallway entered the room, raising my heart beat. Standing at the entrance way was a woman in a suit. I think I remember seeing her while walking through some offices. She had black hair that hung straight over her shoulder, and her eyes were murderous.

Ember raised her hand, and in a purple flash the girl was blown backwards, but she was still standing upright, her arms crossed over her face.

The strange girl shot some green energy at Ember, side stepped. The energy hit the wall behind her, and a big black mark spread on the white paint like a burn. Cara and I screamed, jumping because the magic made a loud booming sound.

Embers became focused. She snapped, and the door fractured, and flew from its hinges spinning towards the girl. The woman disintegrated the door into a pile of ash with little effort. Nerves filled the room me because the fight was happening in such a cramped space.

The woman was about to cast a spell, but Ember was faster, and the lady was hit, but she brushed it off. Ember tried another spell, but it was blocked, and it bounced off of the green energy, and onto the floor, creating a hole that regenerated after a few seconds.

Cara looked in her bag, and pulled out some red stones. She looked at me, and nodded, filling me with courage. I thought back to the time we fought the demon together.

Cara ran next to Ember, and hurled three red stones at the girl. The stones hit the floor, but they burst into a cloud of white smoke. When the smoke cleared the fabric of the woman’s clothes had turned to stone. She was having a hard time moving, and was surprised long enough for Ember to hit her with some spell that made her fall asleep. She tipped over, and fell to the floor with a clunk.

“Follow me.” Ember said.

She walked out into the hallway, and looked around. The hall was smaller than I remembered, and the doors were mismatched. I kept close to the wall as chills ran up and down my body. I didn’t want to do this, why was this happening to me? What did I do? I want to go home.

Ember snapped, and a purple light laid across the floor, leading into the door closest to us. “This way”

We followed the line into a small room with an elevator inside. Ember pressed the button, and held her hand up, ready to blast anyone to pop out, but the doors opened and no one was there. Ember slipped in along with Cara, but I was a second late. The metallic doors slid shut, and I banged on them. Ember’s distressed voice rang in my ears.

I pressed the button rapidly, but I heard a huge metallic groan like a generator shutting off. Now they were stuck in the elevator, and I was out here.

I moved away, and put my back against the wall. I was all alone in a scary red blinking room. This was happening so fast. I slid to the floor, and held my legs to my chest. What was I going to do? Who would come down the hallway next, what if that girl wakes up?

Ember’s voice entered my head, clear, and echoed. Angelo, stay put, and close the door. I’ll come get you when I can. Are you okay?

Yeah, I thought. But what if something happens?

Get that blue band from your room, and use magic. Grab what you can that might help, and get back to the elevator room. Be careful, I don’t want you to get hurt.

I nodded, even though she couldn’t see. Okay.

I got up, and in slow, shaky steps I made my way to the room, and I grabbed the blue band. I looked around, but I didn’t see anything else that might help. I was walking back to the elevator room, when I saw a tiny green gremlin scurry in the hallway. The red blink of the camera was harder to see, but it was still there. I was filled with anger, and I ran up to the thing. Before it could get away I kicked the beast. The tiny gremlin flew into the wall, and crumpled onto the ground. I felt bad for a second, but then I remembered that it was evil.

I went into the elevator room, and I heard Embers voice again. I got the elevator working with my magic, but if I do it again I might be draining my power, so I’ll come for you now. Stay tight. I’m going to have to cut off the connection now, bye.

I sent a thought out to Ember, but she was really gone, and I was alone. I closed the door, and crawled back in the corner.

Scampering footsteps echoed towards the door. I held my breath as tears gathered in my eyes. I raised my hand, ready to stop whoever opened that door.

“Hello? Is anyone there?” It was a female voice, and kind of frail. The voice drifted off, and then came back. “They left.” The voice cursed. “I could’ve used their help about now.”

I stood up slowly, and pushed the door open a smidge. The old queen stood at the entrance to the room. Her wrinkled face was stiff.

I was so relieved I wanted to call her name out, but I didn’t know it, so it came out as, “Mom!” Don’t judge me, I was under a lot of stress, and I wasn’t thinking.

The queen turned confusion was smacked on her face. “Excuse me?”

“Uh, sorry.” I said, “The others went onto the elevator, and promised to get back to me.”

“Whatever, can you use magic?”

“Not much at all.” I confessed.

The queen let out a large sigh. “I can’t sit here, I need to get out. I can’t be trapped. You have to help me out of here.”

I knew how she felt, but I was sure this would be over soon; peace is as persistent as chaos right? But if I wait here then peace wouldn’t be doing anything, someone had to act on peace’s behalf.

“Hold on.” I told the wide eyed queen.

I closed my eyes, and thought of Ember. “Oneta Theno.” I whispered.

Ember?

Angelo? I’m not sure when I’ll be to you, Cara is with me, and we are all twisted.

That’s okay, find the first floor. I’m with the queen; I’ll make my way down.

Are you sure?

Yeah, don’t worry.

Don’t open any doors you don’t have too. There are lasers, and holograms, and all sorts of - Embers voice in my thought cut off.

I almost panicked, but I took a deep breath, and forced myself to be calm. “Come on. Where did you come from?” I asked the queen.

“I came from one floor down, through that door on the right wall at the end. Who can tell which floor we’re on now? All the rooms are muddled up.”

“Let’s just keep going down.” I said, walking to the room the queen mentioned.

I opened the door, and saw a small black room with twisting metal stairs that clinked as we walked down them.

The next hall didn’t have the red lights blinking. The light was bright outside, because the sun was just rising. I could hear terrified screams leaking from rooms all around. I blocked them out, while full of guilt. The queen whimpered as we rushed down the hallway, only opening doors with silence behind them.

There were rooms with empty cubicles, and rooms full of red lasers like in a spy movie. I tossed a stapler that had fallen onto the ground at a laser, and it disintegrated on the spot. I cursed, and grinded my teeth.

“All of the castles defenses are activated. I didn’t even know we had lasers. The curse moved everything around, and messed it up. We need to find a map of the castle; they change as the castle changes to help in case this happened again.”

“What do you mean again?”

“Just keep going. Look for a map on the walls; it’s a screen with images.”

We moved through the halls, and rooms, looking for the map, but we never found anything. I walked down two sets of stairs, and saw holograms of walls, and security guards appear. I saw several lasers, and heard terrified people running around. I felt like I was trapped.

We stopped in one hallway where the queen gasped.

“What is it?”

“He disabled the maps. They were supposed to run on a secret generator, but I guess he found that.” She cursed again. “This is a black screen that is supposed to be a map.” The queen cursed a few more times before I was able to tug her further down the hallway until a door just behind us burst. I turned, and saw several silver manikins walk out of the room. They had glowing red eyes, and strange metallic body parts with wires that poked out of their body. They have freaking robots?

The queen gave the robots some nasty words before asking me if I could use some of my magic. I focused, and caught one of the robots in my energy, but I only caught one, and there were dozens.

The robots hummed in unison, and my eyes widened with the realization that they were going to blast us. I tossed the robot that I had at the others, but only a few were knocked down. I ran, tugging the queen behind me to the door at the end of the hall, hoping that it was the stair case.

I fell onto the floor of an office room. I growled, and closed the door, rushing to the side as a huge blast knocked the door, and the entire wall away. The pieces of the door landed onto the floor with a crash. The blast tossed my hair and clothes. My heart beat went up by a million, and I bit my lip. Adrenaline had kept me going, but now the fear was creeping back, crawling through my body like thin legged spiders.

The robots rushed into the room, and found us in the corner. The queen held my hand tight, but I thought quickly, running back into the hallway over the shattered pieces of the wall. The robots hummed behind me, but I didn’t pay them any attention. I threw open the next door I saw, and to my relief it was the stairs. I hurried down them, practically dragging the queen behind me.

I tripped, and fell to my knees on the metal steps, but I ignored the pain. Nothing was broken, and it didn’t hurt that bad. I got back up, grabbed the queens hand, not bothering to pay attention to her concerns as I hurried back down.

We came to a hallway full of the lasers that blocked our path. I clenched my teeth, and looked around, but there was no escape. I tested the lasers with a pen that lay on the floor nearby. The pen disintegrated, just like the stapler.

The queen was breathing heavily, almost wheezing. I was huffing too. The robots hadn’t followed us, and there was nothing coming after us for the moment. I sat down, and thought about contacting Ember, but she might be busy. I pounded my fist against the floor. I felt pretty cool having done all of that, but now I was trapped, and there was no escaping.

A gremlin scrambled down the stairs, watching me with its camera. I rushed up to swat it away, but it escaped.

The queen had finally regained her breath, and she tugged at my shirt. “Can you bust the floor open?”

“No, and if I did it would just fix itself.” I said. My voice was worn, and I spoke harsher than I intended.

I thought about my parents, and my griffin waiting for me outside of the city, and Ria, who was probably hearing about this on the news. I was envious of all the people I saw these past few days. They aren’t in the castle, but I am.

After a few minutes of waiting, there was the sound of someone walking down the stairs. I felt nervous, reserving my joy for when I see who is on their way for me.

When the person came into view I lost hope. The director was there, wearing a black suit. His handsome face was calm with victory. He tossed a grey alchemy stone at the queen, and she fell to the ground like a puppet as some smoke latched onto her body, surrounding her alone.

I kneeled down, and held her in my hands, but she wouldn’t respond. “What did you do?”

“She’s not dead, but knocked out. She could be of use to me. You however, need to go. If you cooperate, I’ll let you see your friends before you die.”

I shivered. If I tried maybe I could use my magic to blast this guy away, but there was no guarantee that it would work, and I wanted to see Ember and Cara again. Maybe we could work together to get out of this.

I stood up, and walked over to him without a word. I didn’t even look at his face. You’ll pay. I thought.

“Good.” He said. The director handcuffed me, and pulled out a tablet. I assume that’s how he controls the castles technology.

“Did you do this?” I asked.

“The curse, no, but it was my idea. I had my workers do the curse; I needed to save my magic. I had my people work here, and hex other magical workers into working for me. It took months to get to this point, it really was genius.”

“Was that gremlin yours?”

“Yes, there are dozens of them all around the castle. That was my idea as well.”

The lasers in the room blinked off, and the director tugged me through the room by the arm.

“Why are you doing this?” I asked.

He didn’t answer for a few moments. “Because it’s my purpose, Zirea needs to be stopped.”

Stopped from doing what? I still felt uninformed on everything.

“What about the queen?’ I said as we walked through doors, heading down staircase after staircase.

“I’ll go back for her. Nobody is going anywhere.”

We got to what I guessed to be the first floor after several staircases. My legs started to ache by the time we reached the lobby. It was how I remembered it, but the secretary was still sitting there, talking with the guard that once stood at the gate. The servant that was speaking on the phone stood watching a group of panicked hostages sitting in the middle of the room. I looked for Cara and Ember in the mix, but I couldn’t find them.

The general pushed me harshly in front of the group. “You could have avoided this kid. I could offer you a chance to be in the Fervan army, but I don’t like you, so I’ll just make an example out of you.”

“You said I could see my friends.” I said, trying to delay my fate. My heart was racing, and my brain was aching, because it knew the situation was almost hopeless.

“I lied. I don’t know where they are. They might be dead, or on their way here now, but you’ll never know.”

I faced the man, and I held my breath as the terrified people watched in silence.

“You’ll pay.” I said out loud.

“Maybe, but you won’t know that. I could just go on with my life. You will have died never knowing if your country has fallen or not. You will die a scared little boy whose luck had run out.”

I heard a soft pop, and I looked up at the ceiling, where the sound came from. Smoke drifted down onto the hostages, making them fall asleep. Cara whined from some hiding place. The director’s smug grin died, and was replaced with anger.

I smiled, Cara must have missed her target, but she was still here. The director was a flash in front of me. Before I knew it, he held me in his hands. One hand rose to my face. “Don’t do anything else.” He warned. “Now show yourself.”

Cara slowly emerged from behind a nearby cubical. She had a tired look on her face that filled me with despair. We were done. Where was Ember?

I saw something on the director’s wrist snap, and fall to the ground. It was his blue band. I looked out, and saw Ember peeking from under a desk.

The director’s hand began to glow with black energy, when all of a sudden his skin began to evaporate into small pixels. I recognized it; he was being transported to the S-MOD station where I was last night.

I smiled as he grimaced. Before he was completely gone he gave me a hateful glare. I was free from his grip, and I ran towards Cara, who hugged me back. The henchman of the director had a brief moment of panic before rushing up to us, holding small guns.

If I blinked I would have missed it, but a purple flash flicked the guns out of their hands. I looked around and found Ember. I wondered how long they had been here.

The henchman looked around puzzled. A few smart ones ran away, but the dumb ones looked around, while standing in place. Ember used her magic, shoving several workers into a wall, knocking them out while Cara tossed several different colored stones at the remaining ones. They were inflicted with several different ailments that I couldn’t describe at once. Once guy turned blue, and couldn’t stop coughing.

“Let’s get out of here, quickly.” Cara said.

Ember and I agreed, and we all ran out after Ember magically freed the hostages from their bonds. We hurried out of the large doors and into the garden.