Crystal Doors #1 by Kevin J. Anderson, Rebecca Moesta Read Free Book Online Page A

but some things were undeniably magical. She wondered if this was what her own world might have looked like if the Renaissance had occurred at a time when arcane spells could work alongside science.
    Ornate water clocks spun paddle wheels that dumped dippers of water into cylinders calibrated with the hours of the day. The excess current spilled down chutes to turn gears that propelled mechanical figures of outlandish animals and dancing imps.
    “It’s like something from the mind of Leonardo da Vinci on too much coffee,” she murmured.
    “I was thinking more of Dr. Seuss,” Vic said. “I sure wish I had my digital camera. I left it in my backpack by the solarium door.” He groaned with frustration. “Nobody’s going to believe any of this back home.”
    They turned the corner of a domed building whose windows were shaded by flapping orange and purple awnings. Gwen heard a hissing noise and the clank of metal footsteps.
    A gleaming contraption with pulleys and cables plodded toward them on a pair of thick short legs, like a robot built from a child’s construction set. The artificial walking body was studded at every joint with what appeared to be rubies, emeralds, and sapphires, each jewel shimmering with a hidden fire. Bubbles circulated through veinlike tubes. Set atop rectangular shoulders, a compact aquarium tank formed the machine’s “head.” The water-filled dome contained an exotic living creature — a rippled mass that might have been a cross between a sea anemone and a jellyfish. A frilly ridge surrounded the brainlike lump, studded with a ring of eye protrusions.
    “Whoa, what’s that?” Vic said.
    Lyssandra motioned her two new friends forward. Moving with a cautious, ponderous grace, the walking device stopped in front of them. A bubbly voice came from a pair of horn-shaped speakers embedded in the armored chest, reminding Gwen of the sounds Vic used to make when he talked through a drinking straw in a glass of soda. “Greetings, Mistress Lyssandra.”
    “A good day to you as well, Sage Polup,” she said with a quick bow. “These two strangers came through a crystal door during one of Sage Rubicas’s experiments. I am showing them Elantya for the first time.”
    The anemone creature floated closer to the faceplate to get a better view with its ring of eyes. “I hope you find Elantya to be as rewarding, and as safe, as I have.” With a hiss of building power, the walker lifted one heavy leg and then the other. “I must be off to a meeting of the Pentumvirate.”
    Lyssandra said her farewells, echoed by Gwen and Vic, though the two were mystified. “And what was that? An alien?”
    “Sage Polup is an anemonite from beneath the sea. In the ocean, his people are mobile, but they are unable to live or move on land, so our sages created that special survival tank for him. With spells and science, he can walk among us and go about his business through the streets of Elantya.”
    “Why did he want to leave the ocean?” Gwen’s brow furrowed. “Does he work here?”
    “Maybe he’s a foreign-exchange student,” Vic said.
    “He is one of our teachers, and Elantyan students learn much from him. Anemonites are famed repositories of ideas and knowledge, forming a great brain trust when they cluster on the sea floor. This makes them both valuable and vulnerable. Sage Polup’s fellow anemonites are now oppressed, held in thrall by our enemies, the merlons.”
    “Mer-what?” Vic asked.
    “Merlons. An aquatic race that lives in cities beneath the waves. After Elantya was created here to guard the crystal doors, the merlons came to resent our tiny patch of solid ground on their world. They wish to drive us away, but Elantya’s master sages and our own reservoir of knowledge protect us. Still, the merlons have not given up.”
    “And what do the merlons use anemonites for?” Gwen asked.
    “To fight us. Though the anemonites declared their neutrality in the conflict, the merlons enslaved