“Oh, if Plato could see me now!” he yelled, obviously forgetting that they were supposed to be on a stealthy mission to save his former student. “Aristotle, traveler of time!” Riq was pretty sure he’d never seen anything quite so ridiculous as the great philosopher dancing on his toes and making such a pronouncement.
Sera was smiling, and Riq instantly knew that she hadn’t seen what he’d seen. Dak couldn’t have looked any more opposite from her — troubled and confused — which meant that he had seen it.
Dak and Sera’s duplicates. And two strangers.
And no Riq.
What exactly did that mean?
“I hate to dampen the party atmosphere,” Riq said, “but we have to stop Tilda and I think Dak and I saw something that you guys didn’t.” He went on to describe what he’d seen.
Dak’s face was pale — seeing himself had obviously shaken him up a bit. “It was weird.” Riq had to admit that although the kid didn’t have his language expertise, that summed it up perfectly. Sera didn’t even bother with the standard doubtful comebacks.
“Who do you think the man and woman were?” she asked.
“Explain what they looked like,” Aristotle added, his elation from a moment earlier popped like a balloon.
It had only been an instant, but Riq could still see them in his mind. “The man had brown hair, tall. The lady had black hair, green eyes, thin face, some kind of weird jewel on a necklace around her neck.”
“Was it an amethyst?” the philosopher asked.
“Umm, no idea.” Riq was a translator, not a geologist. “But I think it was purple.”
Aristotle shrugged, a comical thing to see on such a great man. “An amethyst, then. The woman you saw was Olympias, Alexander’s mother. In fact, we may be meeting her any second now.” His eyes focused on something behind Riq’s shoulder.
Riq turned around and finally got a good glimpse of the space beyond the giant hedge he’d plowed into upon arrival. Before them lay a vast expanse of gardens — green grass and bushes and flowers and fountains and trees — all arranged in a maze of sorts that reminded him of something out of a fantasy novel. Beyond that there stood a massive house built in the Greek style, with pillars and frescoes and friezes. Small statues lined the walkway that led from the main fountain to the stairs below the back entrance to the palace.
Palace.
That’s definitely the right word, Riq thought. Alexander had some sweet digs.
“Philip is a rich man,” Aristotle said, looking on with the rest of them at the grand structure. “Let’s just say this is his way of keeping his former wife happy.”
Dak started to say something, but before he could even get one word out, a door burst open on the side of the palace and three men came charging out with swords in their hands. Three huge, vicious black dogs, barking and growling, followed on their heels, and then one of the guards shouted, his voice a boom of thunder.
“There they are! Appeared out of nowhere! Sic ’em, hounds, sic ’em!”
Dak had always thought dogs were cute. These things weren’t dogs. These things were big, hungry monsters that wanted to eat him alive. And with his luck, he would probably be the tastiest of his friends.
“Aristotle!” he yelled. “Tell them who we are!” He’d expected to fight Tilda, but not the people they’d come to save from her.
The philosopher appeared to think for a second about shouting at the men with the swords, but then gave up. Those nasty dogs were charging in way too fast.
“I think at times like this it may be wisest to run,” he said. Even on the cusp of death-by-slobbery-fangs, the dude sounded like a philosopher.
“Run!” Dak yelled, getting to the point a lot more quickly. But then he saw that Riq and Sera had already done that, heading for an area with a bunch of those tall hedges — maybe thinking they could find a place to hide. Aristotle took off after them, lifting his robes like a lady in a dress tiptoeing through a mud puddle. He was fast for an older guy.
Dak took a step to go in the same direction, but then the dogs were on him, seeming like they’d leapt ahead at an impossible speed. The beasts got between Dak and the rest of his friends, and to his chagrin they all decided they wanted to focus on the history nerd.
For some reason the words sweet meat ran through his head as he froze, staring at the hideous, slavering monsters, who stared right back at him, their thick throats vibrating with deep growls.
“Nice pups,” Dak said, slowly backing away. They inched forward, matching his movement, telling him with their eyes that he’d better stay put if he wanted to live another five minutes. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see that the guards themselves were sprinting through the gardens, almost on him.
Dak held his hands up to the sky, as if someone had a gun pointed at him. “I’m a good guy!” he yelled. “I’m here to save —”
The dogs didn’t like him talking. All three of them jumped forward, jaws snapping.
A horrible shriek escaped Dak’s throat as adrenaline exploded inside of him. He dove to his left and rolled, barely avoiding the teeth of the lead dog. Then he was on his feet, scrambling around the corner of the original hedge they’d all rolled into when the Infinity Ring warped them there.
The howls and barks of the dogs sounded behind him, and he swore he could feel their breaths on the back of his neck. Dak ran as hard as he could, knowing that he had zero chance of outrunning the drooling monsters. He rounded another corner and saw a big stone dais that had a statue of Plato standing on top of it. It was his only chance.
He jumped onto a small square ledge at the bottom, then vaulted himself onto the dais itself. One of the dogs got the bottom of his robe in its mouth, but Dak was able to rip it free, then climb a little higher onto Plato, who didn’t seem to mind too much.
Dak was just high enough to stay alive. Below him, the dogs leapt and barked and snapped those sharp teeth at him.
“Nice pups,” Dak repeated, feeling about as ridiculous as he ever had before in his life. He wondered for a moment whether these beasts might be the ancestors of his old friend Vígi.
Just then one of the soldiers arrived — the others must have pursued Aristotle and his friends. The man was young, only nineteen or twenty by the look of it. Dark, curly hair covered his head, and eyes of steel — one blue and one brown — looked on Dak with anger. The guy had a breastplate that gleamed, and huge muscles in all the right places. One tough dude.