Read Online Battle for Earth by Keith Mansfield - Free Book Online Page B

phase with the regular universe, making the bodies inside the cloaks almost invisible. Even so, they were still far clearer than when Johnny had last seen them. These were Owlessan Monks, strange beings who worshipped the galaxy itself. Like Clara and the Plican, they had developed the ability to fold space, but only by working together. One on its own could do next to nothing, but two acting in tandem were twice as strong. Add a third and their abilities doubled again—ditto with a fourth and a fifth. Twenty-four of them in the same place would be immensely powerful.
    By now Clara was a deadweight on Johnny’s shoulder. As he half carried, half dragged her toward the edge of the lake, the Monks shrank back as though afraid. In the past they’d always seemed curious, wanting to touch him, but sometimes not quite daring.
    â€œIt is your sister,” said Bram, in response to Johnny’s questioning look. “She has treated space badly, folding and creasing it too much. They sense she is tainted. I hope that, in this place, time will heal and cleanse.”
    Lifting a palm upward, Bram spoke softly and Clara lightened, until she was practically floating beside Johnny. Together, followed at a distance by the flying Monks, they skirted the edge of the lake, arriving on the far side at a grotto of blue crystal pillars, within which a large transparent dome stood on a crystal plinth.
    It was here that Johnny had finally come face to face with his clone. He shivered—that day he had been certain he was going to die. While he laid his sister carefully down, the Emperor stepped onto the strange path that led toward the center of the lake, to the Fountain of Time itself. The scarlet-robed Monks remained by the shoreline. Some of the liquid was defying gravity and spilling up over the sides, where it clumped together, like blobs of golden mercury, before sliding back into the main pool.
    Clara opened her eyes—a couple of tiny white spots were visible among the blackness. “You were right, it’s so peaceful here,” she said, sitting up and resting her back against the plinth.
    Johnny leaned back, looked up at Saturn hanging in the sky above and felt his whole body tingle with relief. It was as if something of their mother remained here, a secret hub of peace and power hidden from the galaxy. It was a place of renewal and was healing his sister, just as the Emperor must have known it would. Together they watched Bram shuffle to the point on the walkway that triggered the liquid chronons to surge into the sky, a beautiful fountain of gold, hanging like a shimmering curtain of light before slowly falling and engulfing the Emperor. Forty thousand years in the past, Johnny and Clara had met Bram when, a youthful Senator, he visited Atlantis. It was astonishing to think anyone could have lived so long. Now it was only the Fountain of Time that enabled him to keep going.
    Bram stood for several minutes, arms aloft, as the liquid fell on him. Slowly the four stars of the Melanian constellation, Portia, began to glow across his chest, and the aura spread until a light was shining from his face and the wavy sparkling hair. Finally the Emperor lowered his arms and began the walk back. The curtain of chronons, hanging in the sky, fell to the ground like the final firework of a spectacular display. Halfway down the invisible path, the Monks crowded around Bram like moths drawn to a new brightly lit flame. He brushed them aside and kept going toward Johnny and Clara. Only a few of the creases across his face had vanished completely and, while walking more normally, he wasn’t about to win any medals. Bram, though, clearly thought otherwise.
    â€œClara—I see you’re looking more your normal self.” The blackness in her eyes was definitely fading. “While you’re resting, I hope you don’t mind if I challenge your brother to a race?”
    â€œWhat?” said Johnny.
    â€œFirst