Spirits of Ash and Foam by Greg Weisman Read Free Book Online Page A

I’d pick up another ball off the dock with my teeth and fling it toward him. Without missing a beat, he’d absorb the ball into the routine. Soon I was fresh out, and he was easily juggling some eight or nine tennis balls. It was seriously impressive. I swear I’ve known the guy forever, and until today, I had no idea he could juggle.
    Of course, I’d lay odds he had no idea he could juggle either. Maq can be rather fuzzy on those sorts of details. His memory is as thin as his old straw hat, which was currently on the ground in front of us, collecting no small amount of change from passing tourists wowed by our antics. Unfortunately, said antics turned suddenly clownish as the balls came tumbling down, bouncing and rolling every which way, some right off the dock and into the water. I scooped one up, but Maq had already forgotten them. There was no thought of collecting the tools of his recent success to repeat the exercise later. Now he was focused only on the money in the hat and the meal it would provide for us within the hour. Maq, you see, is extremely distractible. Then again, tell me, who could focus on the present or the past when able to see into the future? Maq knows where our next meal will come from. He knows where the next zemi will be found. And that prescience of his makes up for a lot.
    As for me, I can’t see the future, and I’m not all that interested in the past. I’m canine. I focus on the now. But I am very good at the now. In fact, I’m virtually omniscient when it comes to the now. For example, I knew that right now Miranda—cheered by Maq’s foolishness—had resolved to face Renée with a smile, an open mind and only the tiniest bit of caution. In that moment, I knew her mind better than I know my own tail. To be clear, I had no idea how it would all turn out. But at present, I knew Miranda was going to give Renée—and herself—the opportunity to be friends.
    I also knew that at present, Rain was in the N.T.Z., standing before the sandstone entrance to the Cache.

CHAPTER SEVEN
    STUDY HALL
    MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 8
    The air was still and smelled too sweetly of vanilla orchids and banana plants, as if the N.T.Z. were a dessert left out to curdle in the thick humidity and afternoon sun. Worse, after the fast-paced journey uphill through the jungle, Rain’s T-shirt was sticking uncomfortably to her back and chest and stomach. Dropping her backpack on the ground, she tried tugging the top away from her damp skin, flapping it to create a bit of breeze, but it helped little.
    Shadows were just starting to lengthen but as yet provided no real shade.
    She took a quick glance around to assure herself she was alone. Then she slipped the zemi off her arm and knelt beside the sandstone slab at the edge of the cliff. She pushed aside a couple of stray vines that partially covered the circular indentation in the stone. She placed the snake charm in the indentation, twisted it a half turn and pulled it out, exactly as she would the key to her room at the Inn.
    Instantly, the sandstone began to glow with blue light, a blue to match the eyes of the Searcher snake on her zemi . The sight— the Sight —was one of Rain’s gifts: her ability to see the magicks that greased the wheels of her quest. Rain jumped back as those mystic wheels caused the block to move. The night before, the first time—perhaps in centuries—that it had opened, this movement was accompanied by a \ grinnnndinnng loud enough to wake the dead. Today, the slab was practically soundless as it glided aside along the frictionless blue glow to reveal the stone steps that led down into the Cache.
    Rain descended a few steps and paused to breathe in the cool air washing over her skin. She reached out a hand to slide it across the smooth stone walls … and felt a curving groove. The light was dim, so she leaned in close. It was another circular keyhole for her snake charm