Description: 1 Peaks and Valleys "Ainsley." The young man''s eyelids fluttered open, reddish orange dust caking his lashes and making the afternoon sky appear as nightfall. He lay with his back against the fractured ground, uncertain of what he had heard, if he had even heard anything. Rubbing the dirt from his eyes, he squinted against the now full radiance of the sun. Craggy canyon walls ascended for half a mile on either side of him, and high overhead, a creature beat its wings as it circled the fissure. The young man frowned with the realization that the creature seemed to be wheeling directly above where he lay, as if waiting for something unfortunate to befall him. "Ainsley." Now he propped himself up on his elbows, stirring the dust beneath him into little clouds. A warm breeze whirled them about and rustled his flaxen hair before vanishing along the canyon run. The word he kept hearing, Ainsley, had a hint of familiarity to it, and the young man mouthed it as he got to his feet and squinted in the direction from which the voice had come. "Hello, Ainsley." He whirled around, raising his right hand before him and willing the power of magic to surge from his fingertips and strike the unwelcome visitor. Multicolored sparks crackled and smoked from his fingernails but fizzled out innocuously against the visitor''s own outstretched hand. Laughter resounded between the canyon walls, its vibrations strong enough to knock the young man off his feet and raise a cloud of ash from his pitiful execution of magic. Sprawled upon his back, he regarded his subduer with trepidation A cleft-chinned man with wavy brown hair stood over him, head tilted back in mirth. As his laughter subsided, the older man peered down at his junior through eyes the color of red-hot coals. "How quickly you''ve come to rely on your magic. Not a very wise decision." Ainsley gasped, scrambling backwards through the dirt to distance himself from the visual abomination. "Come now, Ainsley," said the older man, crouching and extending a well-manicured hand. "You''re not afraid of me, are you? Is it my eyes?" He batted them coyly. "I could have matched my clothes to better suit them, I suppose, but red isn''t really my color." He gestured to the brown satin robes that enveloped him like ribbons of whipped chocolate. Around his waist, he had tied a golden sash. "But as you can tell, I''m colorblind." The young man relaxed a little and allowed himself a smile. "Why do you keep calling me Ainsley?" The older man''s hand was still outstretched, but he didn''t feel comfortable taking it. The older man straightened and adjusted his robes, tucking a piece of fluttering parchment farther into his pocket. "Isn''t that usually how you address someone when that is his name?" he asked with a good-natured grin. "You told me when you first arrived here." Ainsley cocked his head to one side, the realization massaging his brain. "That is my name, isn''t it?" He frowned and rapped himself on the forehead. "How could I have forgotten?" "A bump to the skull perhaps?" said the man, shrugging his shoulders. "Maybe." Ainsley glanced around at the looming canyon walls. "Where are my friends? Where''s Megan?" The man proffered his hand once more. "They''re fine. I can take you to them if you''d like." Ainsley smiled and allowed the man to help him to his feet. "How did I get out here?" "I''m not too clear on the particulars," the man led the way toward a narrow fissure in the canyon wall, "but while you were unconscious, I heard you muttering something about the Staff of Lexiam." "Of course!" said Ainsley, his thoughts becoming more lucid. The staff of elemental powers was the reason he and Megan weren''t back on Earth enjoying the summer break after their first year of high school. It belonged to Bornias Niksrevlis, the seemingly tame old man in their neighborhood, and it served as a legacy for his family, the Silverskins, who were the only people with enough willpower to resist the staff''s overwhelming allure. Bornias used it to travel between Earth and his home world of Sunil where he ruled a kingdom in the country of Arylon. On Bornias''s last trip to Arylon, Ainsley and Megan had accidentally become tagalongs, and the Staff of Lexiam itself, their one means of escaping back to Earth, had been stolen. After a great deal of difficulty, they had finally retrieved it, only to discover that the Quatrys, the gems of elemental magic residing within the staff, had also been stolen. Their situation had not improved when Bornias had been kidnapped and forced to choose between relinquishing the staff or letting Ainsley and Megan perish at the hand of a sadistic necromancer. With luck, ingenuity, and the magical abilities he''d developed in Arylon, Ainsley had bested his enemy, but he couldn''t remember much beyond that. Ainsley bit his lip. "The last thing I remember is feeling kind of sick after . . ." His voice trailed off when he caught the man studying him with his intense red eyes. "Well, before I ended up here." The man nodded as if he understood. "Too much magic can be a dangerous thing." He slapped Ainsley on the side of the shoulder. "Let''s press on." Trudging across the arid canyon floor, Ainsley recanted every complaint he had ever voiced about riding a scrambler or being carried through the trees by a birdwoman. He stopped at least a dozen times to shake rocks out of his boots, having at some earlier point acquired large holes in the toes. His companion never complained, however, offering a shoulder for Ainsley to lean on while he readjusted his boots. Just as Ainsley was certain the strange man had taken enough of the stop-and-go travel, they reached the canyon wall. "Do you want to enter first, or shall I?" asked the man. Ainsley eyed the fissure warily. When he had viewed it from a distance, he had assumed it would enlarge as he drew nearer. Standing before it, however, he felt like a circus clown trying to squeeze into a full car. He wasn''t claustrophobic, but he couldn''t entirely trust something that defied basic logic. "After you," he said. "It isn''t as bad as it looks from the outside," said the man. "You''d be surprised at how deceiving appearances can sometimes be." So saying, he slipped through the crevice with ease and disappeared. Ainsley sucked in his stomach and followed through sideways, but he soon discovered he could walk facing forward with his belly as far out as he pleased. He reached out to touch the tunnel on either side of him, but his fingertips couldn''t make contact. The rock walls seemed to give him the breathing room he wanted. "Thank you for helping me, by the way," he said. He came upon a low-hanging chunk of rock and ducked lower than necessary, remembering the smack to the skull he''d received the last time he had strutted into a cave unawares. "I''m sorry, but I didn''t catch your name." The man turned to face Ainsley. In the shadows, his eyes gleamed like rubies. "Everyone calls me Penitent." He extended his hand once more, and Ainsley found it in the half-darkness. "Everyone calls you that?" Ainsley stopped him midshake. "It''s not your real name then?" Penitent released him. "I buried my real name with my--" Penitent cut himself off with a forced smile. "Your friends will be waiting for you." He turned and led Ainsley deeper within the stone monolith, the daylight waning behind them. The wind that had been stirring through the canyon faded until Ainsley could hear nothing but his own breathing and foot shuffling. "How much farther do we have to go, Penitent?" He stretched his arm out before him, groping for his rescuer''s shoulder or a slip of fabric, but his hand grasped nothing but darkness. Ainsley paused in his footfalls, a nervous sweat beading on his upper lip. "Penitent?" At first, Ainsley thought his legs were giving out on him, for his entire body quivered where he stood. Then, he heard chips of rock falling on the stone floor and felt several of them settle into his hair. Dust clouded the passageway, making him gag and cough, but above his own sounds, he could hear a distinct rumble, like thunder, that reverberated through his stomach. Ainsley covered his mouth and nose with his shirt and crept toward the epicenter of the wall-shaking sound. As he ventured deeper, the path widened until he was standing at the entrance of a cavern whose dimensions rivaled an airplane hangar. An orange glow emanated from a hidden source, lighting the cavern''s innards so Ainsley could see well enough that he was now alone. "Penitent?" he called, voice muffled by fabric. Something roared in response, and every hair on Ainsley''s

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