Bitterwood walked toward Jeremiah. Before he could reach the boy, however, a vertical rainbow appeared in the air in the center of the barn. Several of Blasphet's followers gasped at the strange apparition.
A woman, dressed in a gown that resembled the red scales of a sun-dragon, appeared. She had a silver helmet atop her head. Bitterwood recognized her instantly.
"Jandra?" he said.
Jandra smiled as she spotted him. "Bant!" she said, sounding genuinely pleased to see him. She turned her head and said, even more joyfully, "Hex! Zeeky! Poocher! You're all here!"
Hex snaked his head toward the woman. At first, the swiftness of the motion led Bitterwood to think he was attacking her. Instead, he stopped inches from her face and sniffed, his nostrils flaring. Her hair fluttered as he inhaled as deeply as his dragon lungs could muster. He stared into her eyes, and she stared back.
He exhaled slowly and said, "It smells like you. But, of course, with the goddess in your body, I don't know that I could tell a difference."
"Sometimes you have to trust your nose," said Jandra. "You saw me fighting to regain control. I won. I've pushed the goddess out of my brain at last."
Hex looked skeptical. "Jandra didn't know how to form an underspace gate."
"I do now," said Jandra. "I got rid of Jazz's personality, not her memories. I've learned something amazing while I've been away. I've been to Atlantis."
The hair raised on the back of Bitterwood's neck. He'd encountered Atlanteans before. The technology Jazz had used came from there. Jazz had been his most dangerous fight, ever. It was difficult to imagine a whole city of people with her power.
Jandra continued, "Now that I've been there, I have to go back. I need allies. I plan to destroy the city, and I don't know if I can do it alone."
"Why would you want to destroy the city?" asked Hex.
Bitterwood was more puzzled by something else. "How did you know we would be here?"
"Jazz could track her nanites in your quiver, and now so can I," said Jandra. "Speaking of nanites, I see my original genie has a new owner." She looked at Blasphet. She didn't look particularly concerned by his presence. "And who's using Vendevorex's genie?"
"The genie I buried?" Hex asked.
"It's not buried any more," said Jandra. "It's here, and it's in use. I can detect its radio pulses."
Her eyes fixed on seemingly empty air beside Blasphet. "Come out. If you can use the genie well enough to make yourself invisible, we should talk."
For a moment, nothing happened, and then a calm voice said, "Very well."
The air beside Blasphet cracked as an unseen mirror began to vibrate. The silvery barrier broke into a shower of sparks and dust that fell to the earth in a perfect circle.
Standing within that circle was a sky-dragon wearing a skull cap. He spread his dark blue wings, which were studded with diamonds that twinkled like stars. He stared at Jandra with golden eyes that glowed as if small suns were hidden behind them.
"Greetings," he said, taking a bow. He straightened up and looked around the room. "Some of you are no doubt wondering why I'm no longer dead."
Vendevorex, Master of the Invisible, had always appreciated the value of a dramatic entrance.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE:
THE GATE TO ATLANTIS
The moment Jandra appeared, the voices from the crystal orb Zeeky carried in the cotton satchel slung over her shoulder began to howl. She couldn't believe that everyone in the room didn't hear them. Yet, the only reaction was from Poocher, who tilted his head and fixed his eyes on the bag. He rose from sitting on his haunches and stepped away from Jeremiah, who'd been petting him. The hair along his back once more stood in bristles as he faced Jandra.
Zeeky reached out and placed a hand on his muscular shoulder. "Not yet," she whispered. The pig looked at her with an expression approaching pleading.
"I know," Zeeky whispered, squatting down to his side. "You want to see some action. I promise, you'll get your chance soon."
As they spoke, the shower of sparks caught her eyes. A sky-dragon with a silver skull cap and starry wings stood next to Blasphet, bowing as he greeted the room. She recognized him as Vendevorex from the battle of the Free City-the dragon Jandra thought of as her father.
Bitterwood stood next to her and Jeremiah, but had his attention on Vendevorex. He grumbled, "Doesn't anyone stay dead anymore?"
"It's a pleasure to see you as well," said the sky-dragon.
Jandra crossed her arms. Zeeky knew this wasn't the body language of a daughter reuniting with her father. Jandra said, "So that we can hurry things along and get back to my news, let me fill everyone in on what's happened."
"Please do," said Hex.
Jandra looked at Vendevorex and said, "You died, but with your nanites already programmed to repair your wounds. Unguided after your skull cap was removed, they kept your body in a state of cellular stasis until Blasphet revived it. But he couldn't have restored your mind, could he? Somehow, he brought you back in contact with your old skull cap-the one Hex stole from me."
"And buried here in this barn," said Hex.
"When I brought Vendevorex to the Free City, he was a soulless shell," Blasphet said. "He possessed all the motions of life-he breathed on his own, and if you gave him water, he would swallow-but he was completely devoid of will. I hoped that, as my understanding of my new abilities grew, I might one day restore his mind. Yet, when I brought him into this barn, he slowly began to recover on his own. At first, he possessed no memories, but within days he was fully restored."
Jandra nodded. "That's because you'd brought his body into the control range of his old genie. The device possessed a map of his brain at the time of his death, and guided the nanites in reconstructing Vendevorex's personality."
"How can you know all of this?" Hex asked Jandra.
"It's simple enough to put together," Jandra said. "Obvious, really."
"Your powers of deduction are impressive," said Vendevorex. "I was planning to find you soon. I know that my death must have caused you a great deal of emotional stress."
"Oh," said Jandra, nodding. "Totally."
Vendevorex narrowed his eyes.
Jandra uncrossed her arms. "Now that everybody's up to speed, let's focus on me again." She waved her hand in the air and a flat white disk of spinning light formed before her. Quickly, the light took on the shape of a green island surrounded by a bright blue ocean. The spires of impossibly tall buildings thrust up from the greenery.
"This is Atlantis," said Jandra. "It's a city of six billion people, who all have the same technology used by the goddess. They made the genies Vendevorex and I -and now Blasphet- draw our powers from. These people have powers best described as godlike-but, in one special way, they possess a weakness that leaves them exceedingly vulnerable to attack."
Blasphet craned his long black neck toward the image of the island for a better look. "Why would you wish to attack such a place? Think of the good I've accomplished with my limited understanding of their tools. If they shared their secrets, we could end all suffering."
"But they don't share," said Vendevorex. "They guard their secrets jealously. When Atlantis first came to earth, it decreed that anyone who wanted to experience its bounty would have to live upon its shores. Anyone who didn't would lose access to its miracles."
"Why?" asked Blasphet. "Why possess such power if you don't intend to use it?"
"At the time, the world had gone over the precipice of environmental collapse," said Jandra. "Vast swathes of the ocean were dead zones. The world was experiencing a mass extinction that rivaled the disappearance of the dinosaurs. The cause was human civilization. The goddess was clever enough to constrain civilization to this remote, artificial island. She allowed the continents to return to a state of wildness, or near wildness. Atlantis provided a way for her to cut out the cancer of humanity so that the body of the earth could heal itself."