The Quest of the Prodigy (The Alchemist of Time Book 1) Read online

  “Yup,” he said without pause, “and now I have. See you around, Bellator.” He hurried toward the door, too worried about not being captured to comfort her.

  Her right hand grabbed his shoulder before he got far. “You think I can just let you leave?” She ignored his eager nod to her rhetorical question. “You’re trespassing, Bas. The King will be pleased I caught a spy, and perhaps pardon me completely.”

  “You’re still working for a complete pardon? Don’t you get it? Nothing you do will please that evil jerk. King Noctria is feared across the world for a reason, Bellator. Face it darling, you’re working on the wrong side of the war. You could be a decent person if you switched sides,” Bas said in a desperate attempt to appeal to her humanity.

  “What do you even care what happens to me? Let’s go, Barkley.”

  “No thanks. I’d rather go home instead.”

  Though her arms were wrapped around him in what she thought was a tight grip, Bas slithered and wiggled free like a worm on a fishing hook. He pushed her back in one swift shove. The surprise maneuver threw her off balance, and by the time she recovered Bas was already sprinting down the hall of the Ambassador quarters.

  “Deatherage!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “Intruder! Spy! Get him!”

  BAS DARED a glance back, only to see they were catching up with him in the corridor. There were even less windows in this corridor than the one he had teleported into. Despite the darkness, it was nice to run on a long, red carpet for a change.

  Suddenly there were two Ambassadors chasing him, their long black coats billowing behind them. Bellator had succeeded in hailing her partner.

  He was a little taller than her, with thin black hair slicked down by glops of gel, a large potato snout for a nose and a scowl planted on his face. He had wrinkles from scowling too much. All and all, Bas didn’t want to be introduced to her unpleasant looking partner, and ran as fast as his red cowboy boots would allow.

  “Give up, Bas, you’ve lost!” yelled Bellator, her voice echoing off the stone walls.

  “It’s only over if you can catch me!” taunted Bas, and jumped down a small stretch of marble stairs.

  Pain shot through his legs at the harsh landing, forcing him to trip down the next set of stairs. Ow! Not good! he thought as his shoulder hit the floor and made a popping noise. Possible fracture. He managed to stand up and pushed through the pain, disoriented as he ventured down another corridor in the labyrinth of the castle.

  Does no one in this castle know how to clean? Bas wondered as he spotted more dust floating in front of the windows. Through the long halls of the gothic castle, eerie screams could be heard getting closer the further he ran. The murderous screams made him shudder and the hairs in the back of his neck stood upright. The screams were coming from the direction he was headed to, and he wished he was heading away instead.

  Looking behind him, he grinned to see there was no sign of the Ambassadors. Bas thought this momentary solitude might be enough to allow him to make his escape at last. Pausing, he grabbed the golden key dangling from his neck. It was a colossal mistake.

  Bellator appeared from the opposite direction and charged, tackling him and slamming his hurt shoulder into the floor. Bas yelled and tried to wiggle free of her grip. Bellator must have learned her lesson the first time. Another scream from nearby increased his fear.

  Realizing struggling was useless, Bas changed tactics. He looked up to admire the tanned, dark-haired beauty for a split second, hoping a gaze from his kind eyes would soften her strongly-spirited soul.

  “Let go!” he pleaded. “Bellator, you know you don’t want the King to kill me. You’ll miss me too much!”

  “Oh,” she said with a cruel smirk, “I don’t think I will, Bas. You’ve fooled me once and stolen my Time Phone. You’re not the dashing hero I mistook you for last week. Fool me once—well, you know how the saying goes.”

  “I know I did you wrong, but is executing people the answer to all life’s problems?”

  She rolled her eyes at his empty words. “You can’t talk your way out of this one, Bas. Deatherage, what are you waiting for? Get the tracker gun!”

  Her brutish partner, Captain Daniel Deatherage, pulled from his jacket a large, scary-looking weapon. Though it had the handle of a rifle, the tip was two prongs glued together to form a giant needle.

  Knowing what it was, Bas grew desperate. “No! No, please! Take me to the King. Just don’t Track me!” he cried in horror. To a person such as Bas who spent most of his days traveling carefree, having someone know his exact location at all times was worse than any torture the King could implement.

  Bellator looked satisfied as Deatherage shot Bas with the Tracker. He winced in pain as the needle grabbed his skin, producing blood as a blinking red piece of metal shot through his arm. He gazed down at the metal in his arm with horror and glared up at them. “You ruddy tossers!” he yelled.

  Bellator pulled a necklace from around her neck and smiled. The necklace’s charm was a giant green arrow, pointed right at Bas. The metal square in his arm turned from red to green to match the necklace, demonstrating where he was, how he could always be found. It terrified him. It terrified him even more than the murderous ongoing screams he could still hear in the distance.

  “Take him to the King,” ordered Bellator, her eyes reflecting a dark gleam of vindictiveness.

  HEAVY DOUBLE doors at the end of the corridor opened and Bas was shoved roughly inside.

  The dungeon was massive, windowless, bleak and had an odor of either rotten flesh or spoiled eggs. There was a low dripping sound as if the dungeon was built to mimic a dark and uncomfortable cave. The low stone ceiling was round. The only lighting provided was by a few torches mounted on the stone walls. The shadows given off by the torches were eerie and Bas felt properly terrified. His heart beat faster with fear as he spotted the King in the middle of torturing someone, the source of the screams in the halls. He might be next.

  Only two feet away, King Noctria was having fun as he tortured some poor man who looked seconds away from death. The stranger’s limbs were cruelly wrapped by tightly knotted ropes to a torturing device known as “the rack,” a long ladder frame that the prisoner’s back laid upon.

  At the end of the rack was a metal ratchet-and-pull system. A spoke wheel that the King used to turn the tension slowly yanked the stranger’s arms and legs in opposite directions in small increments. The King tried to pull the truth out of the stranger for a few painful minutes, but the man remained silent. Bas knew the King wasn’t known for giving up easily; he had a reputation for being as relentless as he was ruthless.

  There was a chilling click, click, click of the wheel as the tension of the device was increased. With each turn of the spoke, the human bones were pulled apart from the body’s ligaments, sending the victim in an intense state of unimaginable pain that was reflected in every scream ejected by the stranger as his bones were mercilessly ripped apart.

  The rack may have been a classic torturing method used first by the ancient Greeks, but King Noctria has made it his signature torturing device. He claimed one shouldn’t mess with the classics.

  Coming face-to-face with the King was just as frightening as watching someone get tortured by such a cruel method as the rack. It was those fierce, icy blue eyes of the King that Bas could not have imagined. He was just under six feet, with shoulders that weren’t particularly broad, but it was difficult to judge the build of the King with how much shoulder patch action royal robes contained. Atop his dark locks of hair set his golden crown, adorned with ruby jewels.

  He was clearly dressed to look important, with a long silk train and rare jewels embellished over the front two lines of his robe. A golden rope tied the frock together. He looked impressive.

  His icy eyes stared down the Time Ambassadors. “Ah, Captain Deatherage, I was worried you would disappoint me as usual, but I see you found me a new guest.”

  Captain Deatherage gave the King a C
heshire grin at the back-handed compliment while the King turned the spokes of a wooden wheel. Another shriek escaped out of the elder man’s mouth.

  “Actually, Your Highness,” Bellator said bravely, “it was I who found the spy.”

  “Oh?” asked the King.

  She stood a little taller. “Yes, sir.”

  The King laughed. “Well done, Bellator. But one spy does not merit a full pardon. You are still under my absolute control. You are still forbidden to leave the castle except to carry out my missions, or to see your family.”

  As Bellator looked up, Bas could see her hurt expression. A gleam of sorrow was reflected in her eyes, but neither Deatherage nor the King seemed to catch her crestfallen gaze, or else didn’t care enough to show recognition of it.

  “Told you,” whispered Bas so only Bellator could hear.

  Bellator looked startled that Bas had caught on to her disappointment. He offered her a charming smile in a mild effort to cheer her up, all the while wondering why he cared.

  Another scream from the tortured man broke his concentration on Bellator. Bas turned around to see the King still torturing his prisoner. He wanted to help the stranger, but what could he do? He was just one man. He wasn’t a hero.

  Bellator’s grip on him was strong, and Deatherage was blocking his path in case he ran. He couldn’t do anything for the stranger. But if he was clever enough, he just might make it out alive.

  “Uh, I can see you’re busy, Your Highness,” Bas said, his voice clouded with fear. “I can come back later. Or, you know, never.”

  This made the King laugh, although the mirth could barely be heard over the screams of the victim as the ropes tied to his wrists and feet continued to pull in opposite directions. Bas closed his eyes, not able to look at the older man’s expression of agonizing pain.

  “Don’t be silly my boy! Now, you must be Sebastian Barkley. I’m surprised you were able to break into my castle. That’s not even been attempted in years. Did the Queen send you? I heard she is very interested in you.”

  “She is?” Bas asked. This was news to him.

  “Can you tell me why she’s so interested in you?” the King inquired. “If you help me, I just might let you go. Otherwise, you’d end up like Mr. Toube here, and I think he can tell you how much fun we’re having.”

  The King turned to the stranger he was torturing, as if Bas and the Ambassador’s weren’t even in the room. “Isn’t that right, Toube? Are you sure you won’t tell me what that message was? I need to know where the other two are hidden! I can’t win this war with only one Cipher!”

  Mr. Toube’s face was the palest white, his eyes pleading with Bas as if he could do something to help him. The King laughed at the helpless gaze and straightened the crown on his head before looking back to Bas. “So, do you want to follow Mr. Toube’s example by denying me, or do you want to live?”

  “I...I want to live, of course, why wouldn’t I—I’m the Incredible Bas!” He was stumbling, trying to find the right words. “But I honestly have no idea what the Queen wants with me. Even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you.”

  “I see. I’m very disappointed,” the King said. “Impes, search him.”

  While Deatherage leveled the Photon Laser at him, Bellator carefully took off his beloved cranberry coat to search it. She brutally stepped on his toes with the heel of her steel boots, and Bas bit his lower lip to keep from screaming in pain as the metal dug through his red cowboy boots. She searched all the pockets of his coat until she found something.

  “Here you go, Your Majesty,” Bellator said in triumph as she revealed a book.

  “Nooooooo!” Bas cried, purposefully overdramatic. He dropped to the floor as Bellator let him go to present the King with his book, Deatherage still held the Photon Laser on him. “Please, that book is not meant for you to read!”

  “The Time Traveling Diaries of Sebastian Barkley?” mocked the King.

  Bas continued the facade and crawled toward the King. The King stood still, distracted by such unusual, disrespectful antics. Rising slowly to his feet, Bas’s hands clutched the King’s robes.

  There was the chilling sound of Captain Deatherage clicking back the Photon Laser. A wheezing sound came from the weapon as it began to charge. Deatherage’s attempt at intimidation was successful.

  Bas couldn’t give up now. He wasn’t even thirty yet…much too young to go out like this. “This book is how I’ve been traveling through time,” lied Bas.

  “We’ve never seen that book before,” remarked Deatherage with a growl.

  “Shut up, Deatherage!” barked the King and he looked back at Bas. “So you know how your father was able to crack the code of time?”

  “You betcha! But I have a question for you, Your Majesty.”

  “Only because you amuse me with your wasted bravery on thinking you can stand up to me, I will listen to your question.”

  “Why do you care about our methods of time travel? You have half the world in your power. You are regrettably winning this war. And more importantly, those Time Cars of your Ambassadors of Time here are legendary. Why do you need my father’s methods of time travel when you clearly have your own means with the Time Cars? Why can’t you just leave us Barkleys alone?”

  “You cheated,” sneered the King with a tut in his voice, “that was more than one question. But I will tell you why I cannot leave you Barkleys alone. True enough, my Time Cars work just fine. But they can only work if they have a trace of something that traveled in time before them, detected by Time Phones. My Ambassadors, as I thought you’d have guessed by now, can only trace the residue of a past time traveler. I don’t want to just chase tails. I want to blaze through history. To control it! To send armies through time! I want to win this war, banish my estranged Queen like she banished my heart and be the only ruler of this planet! My mere Time Cars cannot control time, like I hear your father can. Now tell me, what is the secret of your father’s unlimited time travel...tell me, or I’ll have the entertainment of watching your head roll on my floor. It’s a win-win for me, really.”

  “I can’t tell you that. My father would time-arrest me for life! But I do have one thing to say to you.”

  “Before you speak,” warned the King, “consider what defying me really means.” He turned the last spoke of the rack.

  There was a haunting, final scream as Mr. Toube’s life ended. Bas yelled in horror as blood was splattered and the bones of the stranger’s knees finally pulled apart. He wiped some of Mr. Toube’s blood off his face and stared in horror at the King, wondering how anyone could be so cruel. The King’s momentary distraction gave Bas enough time to half think of a plan that was almost clever.

  “Fetch!” Bas yelled to the King. He took a step back and swiftly kicked the book out of the King’s hand as if he were a punter in American football.

  The King looked stunned as the book flew through the air. While the book spun, Bas dropped quickly to the floor to avoid a laser blast from Captain Deatherage’s Photon Laser. He ducked and rolled over to Bellator.

  “Thanks for holding my coat, babe.” He winked and yanked his coat from her grip. Taking out the Time Phone, he pushed a few buttons with his thumbs as though he were texting. The Time Phone was only powerful enough to send small objects through time, like the Diary. If he was lucky, it just might be enough of a distraction.

  Bas aimed the phone at the book that had fallen nearby and zapped it. The entire book glowed a powerful yellow light and vanished.

  “Where’d it go?” growled the King.

  “Ha!” Bas cried in victory. “I sent it back somewhere in time.”

  “Somewhere?” asked the King.

  Bellator and Deatherage tried to advance on Bas, but Bas had already started backing away. He didn’t have much time to get away before the King called for more guards.

  “Yes, I set the Time Phone on random. Even I don’t know where or when the book is. But I know the book went somewhere safe.” Or to someone saf
e, Bas thought to himself hopefully.

  “Seize him!” cried the King.

  “Bellator, lovely to see you again. Although I think you can do so much better than him,” Bas said, pointing at the glaring Deatherage. “King Noctria, hope I never meet you again, but I have a feeling this isn’t the last you’ve seen of the Incredible Bas.”

  Bas unbuckled the brass buttons of his aged, red-leather utility belt given to him by Billy the Kid and pulled from one of the smaller pockets a tiny smoke bomb, his last smoke bomb to be exact. Knowing he only had one small window of escape, he smashed the bomb to the ground and smiled as smoke clouded the room.

  The King, Bellator and Deatherage started coughing.

  With no one able to see, that exact moment was his only chance. Bas didn’t waste it as he inserted the key around his neck into a slit of his watch. There was another blinding flash of light, and the Incredible Bas was incredibly gone.

  The sun blared down on a crowded New York City street, not a single cloud in the sky. To the five-year-old girl, the sun made for a hot Saturday afternoon. She was happy her mother had insisted on her wearing a white dress to help cool her. On her back bounced an empty blue backpack, ready to be filled with books her father declared would change her life. It was her first time ever visiting the library, and she was skeptical what made this building more special than the others in New York City.

  Her feet were sore from walking all the way from the Times Square subway stop, but there was a vibrant energy on 42nd Street that made her forget the pain. Five-year-old Mimi Mockel squealed with fear as a large bus zoomed past just as they finished crossing the street. She had been busy admiring the gray stone building and trying to count how many statues stood atop the crown molding.

  Her father laughed and hoisted her upward. Mimi felt as though she were flying as he positioned her over his shoulders. She had a better view of the crowded intersection of 42nd Street and 5th Avenue from here. Tourists were taking pictures in front of the building, and pedestrians walked briskly around it. A small group of people sat in green and black yard chains by the stone lion on the left, waving books about and talking excitedly. Their engrossed conversation made her smile.