~Chapter six~
"Where are we?" Mira muttered as they landed. Yellow brick roads. Hump-backed bridges. A clear blue sky above the beautiful greenery around them - flowers, trees and bushes. A small pond with lilies and small red and orange fish swimming inside. "Are you sure this is China?" Xiala asked. "Yes - it should be. But something's wrong." "Wait a minute. What time is it?" Xiala said. Mira gave her a quizzical look. "I mean, is this the twenty-first century? Look at our surroundings. They look ancient, but new." Xiala insisted. Mira looked around and frowned. "We need to get out of here. I have a feeling I know where we are, and we don't want to be spotted, especially if it's the timeline I'm thinking about." They ducked behind a flowerbush. The pink and white flowers, as wide and large as two of Xiala's fists together, were in full bloom. They had multiple, full petals, like a spread-out wide rose, except there was something more agreeable and open and welcoming about this flower. "Peony." Mira said. They walked over the peony bushes. The floor became tiled and the material was patterned china. A tall, thick oak tree loomed above them. A small temple for sight-seeing stood across the clearing. Suddenly they heard footsteps. Mira and Xiala ducked behind a lavender bush. A voice flowed across the clearing. It was a man's voice, and he spoke a language they couldn't decipher - Chinese. A moment later they saw a man wearing ancient blue robes come towards the peony bush. Behind him were two servants; they each carried a canvas and stand and multicolored paint with the best quality. Xiala squinted. The man had a long nose, a white beard and white eyebrows. He looked like a Santa Claus artist. The other people behind him had black hair, brown eyes and yellowish skin. "Who is that?" Xiala said. "SHH!" Mira cried. The person walked toward them. He said something in a tone they didn't know. "Who are you?" Xiala said, stepping out. He raised his eyebrows and signaled for his people to leave. They nodded and left. To their surprise he spoke English. "I am Lang Shining, the Chinese emperor's professional artist. Who are you, and why are you in the royal gardens of the Forbidden City?" Mira stole a glance at Xiala. "What would Eve say?" Xiala whispered, shaking her head, dismayed. The easiest way to get someplace was to give an act. Of course. Eve was giving them advice, wherever she was. "Oh, good sir, my sister is seven and is carrying a terrible disease!" Xiala cried over-dramatically, holding the back of her hand to her forehead and shedding a few fake tears. "What?" Mira hissed. "I'm ten!" "Just go with it." Xiala hissed back. "Well, if she's sick, I insist you come with me and the emperor will help you. What do you have to offer?" Lang Shining asked. "Gold!" Xiala immediately cried, holding out a black, empty, satin back. "It fills with gold when you want it to." She added. "Jewels!" Mira said, showing Lang her diamond bracelet. Xiala elbowed her. You are supposed to be sick! She hissed in Mira's mind. "I mean - cough - jewels - cough." Mira corrected herself. "Very well. Come with me." As they walked up the lilac paths, Mira hissed to Xiala. "We shouldn't stay here. This is not a good timeline for two wandering kids in the Forbidden City. We could be executed!" "Just because we wandered here by accident through a portal?" Xiala huffed. "How would you explain it?" Mira hissed back. "They would probably think we are lying to the emperor, which would give us an even heavier sentence." "Well, what should we do now?" Xiala whispered to herself. "Should we escape?" She rummaged through her satchel and felt her hands clasp on a small bottle - a portal drop. Yes. She pinched Mira and showed her the portal drop. Mira nodded and gave her a hand signal. Three - two - one - they disappeared in a flash of light.
"Where are we now?" hissed Xiala. They seemed to be in a dark space. The ground beneath them was solid rock. Xiala scraped her arm on the sharp stone wall to the left. A moment later she heard Mira's voice, deeper into the tunnel. "Xiala? Are you there?" "Here," Xiala replied, raising her voice so her sister could hear. "Alright, then," Mira breathed, inching closer towards Xiala's voice. "What's that?" Xiala asked, pointing to the flash of glowing light in Mira's pouch. "I think it's the prophecy gem. Does it want to take us somewhere?" Mira said just as a strong burst of light shot out from the prophecy gem and engulfed them in darkness.
She turned to the room around her. It was a tall, big room. In the center was a big marble fountain. Her heart stopped. She'd heard Moonlight mention a magic fountain in the center of Alcatraz once. She knew it was the center of the Labyrinth, where the Keeper of Light would come. On the walls, she saw paintings of the Keepers of Light over the years; the most recent, she recognized, was Eve. Eve as a young girl her age. But Moonlight had once warned her, when they were small, that this was also the darkest place on the continent as well as the 'lightest'. This was where light and dark warred. Light had won, and darkness was banished to this very fountain. The Keepers of Light came to defeat and re-banish the dark power every generation. So this is where Nightmare came from. But why would Moonlight imprison her family here, when they had a greater chance of defeating her completely? Or are they not here? They wanted me to come here . . . for what? To defeat the dark power from it's center? But - but can I do that? She glanced around. Of course I can. For Mother. For Olivia. For Arisha. She studied her surroundings. There must be some way I can open the fountain. Just don't release the dark magic instead. She approached the fountain and turned a marble seashell. There was a great rumble. Outside, she could hear Fang howl. Loose stones cascaded down in dust. The ground seemed to shake. Lily was flung to the polished marble floor, knocking her head and shutting her eyes. When the dust had settled, she rose up from the floor a little dizzily. The top of the fountain was slowly spiraling up to the ceiling. A wisp of black smoke flew out the top of it and stretched. It spoke in a raspy voice that Lily couldn't hate more. "Moonlily. It's been so long. Moonlight was so eager to see you." Nightmare said, in her shadow form. Lily frowned. "Eager? No, she just needed freeing from you. Now, give me back my Arisha!" Nightmare cackled. She hovered over the fountain as Lily glared. "Give you back? Well, well, Lily, haven't you seen how much she likes my power? Soon, she will be engulfed in it, more than you ever have. No, she has already been. She's evil now. Face the facts, Lily. And you are welcome to join her." "Who even are you?" Lily yelled. "I know you." The words were pouring out of her mouth; she didn't know where they came from. Everything around her was blurring away, glowing white. Her hair rose up behind her and she felt a burst of energy that lifted her up in the air, face-to-face with Nightmare. "You don't," Nightmare snarled back. "I am the power of the Night, the darkness in the Moon!" "Yes, I do," Lily shot back. "I should have come back earlier. Now that I'm back, will you come back too?" She didn't know what she was saying, but her mouth continued to talk nonsense. "Let the light come back to you, darkness. You aren't a Nightmare. You are darkness." Nightmare gave a shriek and fell to the ground. There was a burst of black energy around her, and for a moment Lily felt all the energy drain out of her. Then the light settled. Lily gave a gasp and fell to the floor.
(Source: A nightmare in the moon - Part two)
Xiala gasped and sat up, pulling her mind out of her mother's memories roughly. Mira was still in her vision. So that's how Nightmare was defeated. But there was something else she'd seen, as Nightmare fell to the ground. Three black wisps of smoke that slowly turned silver. They'd fallen into the fountain and each struck a gem. Fumbling out the book of wisdom she wrote hastily: What did the wisps of magic do? The answer came quickly: Moon, Sun and Star. "What does that mean?" Xiala asked, outloud. But it was all the Book of Wisdom would tell her.
"Diamond." Says Orca as she steps into the astronomy tower. "I need to tell Diamond." "What's the matter, your majesty?" Asks Anatolia. "We need to tell Diamond this, fast. A new power will descend into our bloodline. I had a dream yesterday about it - three wisps of silver smoke into the veins of two children from the Water Kingdom." Orca is truly panicking now. Anatolia bites her lower lip. "There's something I forgot to tell you. I had a prophecy yesterday." "You did? What did it say?" Orca asks anxiously. "Well, it went like this:
When the War has lasted a century
A dangerous power beneath the sea
Will be released from its bounds
Of marble and of wounds
A maze to seek through
Two warriors will pursue
Beware the power of the Night
Beware the might of the fright
The journey on the Moon
Will begin at the Full-Moon's noon
Of the twelfth day of the twenty-first century
A dangerous power beneath the sea
Beware the power of the Stars
Beware the power of Mars
Beware the Queen of Light and Air
Into the waterfall to seek clear and fair
Go to the lands of mystery
And luck will accompany thee
Avoid the past and future
Or you will meet your failure
Fire will burn your victory
Air will lift you too high to clearly see
Ice will break your heart
Earth will lead you back to the start
Beware the mirror put underground
Beware Si Ala to be drowned."
Mira sat up with a gasp. Xiala was looking down at her. "What did you see?" Mira told her about the prophecy. "A century after the War - the war of which? Multiman, preferably. That would be a generation before us. So, Mother's time. Marble and wounds, beneath the sea - the Fountain of Alcatraz!" "Yes! The power of the Night - that would be Nightmare. A maze to seek through the Labyrinth, if I'm not mistaken." "You aren't. But what about the ones behind that?" Xiala frowned, thinking hard. "Two warriors will pursue the Labyrinth. But that doesn't make sense. And who?" "Well, if it was the past tense, that would be Mother and Moonlight, right?" Mira said uncertainty. "But there's a point when the prophecy tells the present. Well, future, if it's at Orca's time. But that won't help if it's from a long time ago, right? Only the lines before it are useful." "Unless we go back to Orca's time." Xiala said. Mira gasped. "That's it! The prophecy tells us to go back in time! First we need to go back to Mother's time, when she was in the center of the Labyrinth. There must be a clue about the star and moon powers back then." "Already done." Xiala replied. "I just had a vision about that time." She described her vision and her doubts to Mira. "Wait - Orca said something about a strange dream that included some of the things you said. I just can't remember." Mira closed her eyes and called on her photographic memory. "Yes! She said something about three silver power-wisps or something. There was something else, too. She said something about the water kingdom." "Well, that's it! The silver wisps of smoke gave us extraordinary powers. Easy-peasy." "Yes. But why does she want us to go back to Orca's time? Does it want to tell us to descend into the Labyrinth during her century?" "Probably," Xiala said thoughtfully. "But it also said, Beware the mirror is put underground. I have a feeling it has something to do with you. Mirror - Mira. Mira means mirror, right?" "Yes. So I can't go into the Labyrinth, which is underground. But what does the next line mean - Beware Si Ala to be drowned? That doesn't even sound like English." Wait a minute. Si Ala. Si Ala. Xiala! "I think Si Ala means Xiala. So you're going to drown?" Xiala blinked. A moment later she said, "Sounds reasonable enough." "Or maybe it's a warning. I can't go underground, and you can't go underwater. What if we need to go back in time and find Orca as well as going into the Labyrinth? You can't go underwater, and I can't go underground, so it'll be the opposite role to play." "Alright." Xiala took a deep breath. "I'm ready." Mira raised her eyebrows in challenge. Xiala sighed. "Fine. I don't want to drown. Not now, not ever. Can Olivia drown instead?" "No, I don't think so." Mira said uncertainly. "Speaking of Olivia, I'm pretty sure she's included in the prophecy too, some doom or something. But I can't figure out where. It might tell us how to defeat her." "'The power of the Light and Air'?" Xiala guessed. "There's something else, too. I don't think this prophecy is finished." Mira gave her a stern look and replied, all in one breath, "I agree, even though it is already very long and complicated and has a lot of clues and that's a doubtful theory." Xiala pushed her affectionately. Mira giggled. "Alright. Hopefully the prophecy gem will allow us another vision sooner or later. But for now, I have a feeling this is all the information we are supposed to know." "Yeah," Xiala agreed. "Surely. Now, where's that portal drop we have left?" I hope this isn't a bad idea. I hope we aren't falling into a trap. I hope we didn't misunderstand the prophecy. I hope this will work out.
THE END