I stopped Tarzan and asked if he knew where the boy was heading, but he did not have any more information for me other than a vague generalized understanding of where the train was departing from.
I made him show me the image of the car where he saw Tory again and was relieved to notice that the boy looked well, or at least was not coerced or poorly treated. Wherever he was going, it seemed as if he was doing it willingly.
I gave a hand-signed thank you to Tarzan and turned back to Simon and the twins. "I know what happened to Tory, and I know what happened to the worker apes three days ago."
Quickly, I related what I had seen in Tarzan's visual communication images.
"I didn't even know there was a train station at the Academy." I mused out loud. "I wonder where this train is located since I've never seen it running through Topaz before."
The twins looked at each other, then Connor replied with some hesitation. "We've heard of this train station, but it's not what you think."
"Come again?" I asked.
"It is actually not a commonly known structure within Topaz," Connor said with a frown as he tried to find the simplest words to explain a very complex situation,
"It's a hidden station that connects to a portal through which an entire train comes through from outside of our realm. The physical location of the portal is located somewhere on the east side of the Academy."
I frowned. "How can you hide an entire train station? Wouldn't it be visible from the ground or in the air?"
Corwin shook his head. "It can't be seen from the air or on the ground because the station is located deep within Topaz mountain."
"And if that wasn't enough," Connor added, "the depot is also hidden by magik in one of the buildings that have been built up against the mountainside. The trains depart from that depot, go through the mountain, and exit somewhere on the other side."
Simon scratched his head. "So why didn't they take Tarzan with them?"
Tarzan bowed his head and transmitted to me his vivid answer.
I squeezed my eyes shut against the glaring vision of the Mage Staff, clutched in Tarzan's large fist.
That smooth sculpted black iron scepter shaped from the finest mage-forged iron, topped with a fist-sized multi-faceted quartz crystal was so familiar to me.
It had turned into a weapon of murder yet again.
The quartz crystal, held within the staff's five-pronged dragon claws, was dripping with thick crimson, energy-effused mage blood.
Beyond the crystal's line-of-sight, I could see the blonde Overlord. His black-clad body was now lying in a crumpled heap on the floor of the rail car; his blank unseeing blue eyes were mired in a thick rivulet of blood rolling down from his crushed temple.
"Tarzan killed his Overlord and ran away." I said with little emotion.
"What!?" Simon's jaw dropped. "He murdered a mage?"
"He struck back because he'd been beaten almost senseless by the Overlord. It was self-defense."
"When did this happen?" Simon asked.
"This was last Tuesday when the Mage Elites kidnapped that huge group of primates. He didn't want to be taken away from the Academy by strange mages in black suits so he fought back."
Corwin nodded. "Good for Tarzan. That's one less traitorous Overlord we will have to strike down."
"Are the apes still at the train station?" Connor asked Tarzan.
The orangutan shook his head and turned back to me.
I gasped as a powerful mental message came blazing across from Tarzan, insisting that he needed my help to free the kidnapped apes.
"He knows where they are." I relayed the vision to the mages.
They all looked at each other. Something unspoken passed between the three male mages.
Corwin was the first to respond. "Tarzan, do you have any more information that you can give us about this kidnapping?"
Tarzan nodded in excitement. He continued to leak images to me, of what had happened on Tuesday. As I received the visual, I verbally passed on his messages to the mages.
Throughout all the visuals, the black-suited Mage Elites were everywhere.
Although I could not hear any of the sounds that the primates made, the visuals of their anguish could be felt.
I could not help shaking with rage over the Overlords' universal heavy-handed usage of the mage's staff as little more than a cudgel with no regard to the welfare of the primates under their care.
As Tarzan relayed to me the moving images of babies and young apes, torn from their mothers' arms and carried away onto separate rail cars, tears sprang from my eyes. Their piteous crying was only matched by the mothers' anguished wailing.
Lifelong mates, their faces frozen with fear, were separated into all male and all female groups and subsequently chained together.
All resistance was effectively beaten into compliance. The non-compliant were subsequently tossed into a mangled, lifeless heap to be rendered into worm food.
As I received the disturbing images from Tarzan, I related them to the mages who shook their heads in disbelief and horrified disgust.
The guys looked worried. There was a change in the very atmosphere. Something was dreadfully wrong in Topaz.
"Where are the Bainsworth warriors? What happened to all the Jaynami soldiers? Why aren't they protecting Topaz from these interlopers in black suits?" Corwin grounded out with frustration.
Tarzan showed me more images of the scene. I covered my eyes in shock.
"What's going on?" Connor shook my shoulders to jolt me out of my stupefaction.
I drew in ragged breaths as I tried to relay the powerful messages coming from Tarzan.
"While we were dispersing the crows and the bats, the Montecetos, the Bainsworths, and the remaining Imaras joined forces with the Mage Elites and staged and ambush against the Council of Mages!"
"My family's House Imara ambushed us." I shook my head sobbing.
"No!" Connor turned to me and touched my shoulders. "Your parents would never do anything to hurt any of the Houses and Disciplines. Your House has been usurped by the Mage Elites and your parents have been driven out."
I shook my head and continued. "Your family's House, along with the Jaynamis and the Blackstones, tried to hold the intruders back."
I raised horror-stricken eyes up at Connor. "But they couldn't hold the line because there were too many Mage Elites pouring through from outside Topaz.
"The Academy's students and professors have all been rounded up and taken away. The remaining mages have been driven back into the heart of Topaz City."
"Their last stand is the defense of the pyramid. If the pyramid falls, Topaz is a dead city. There's nobody left in the Academy right now except for us."
I was about to say more, but suddenly, the air was filled with the dreaded sounds of the emergency air horns. It was deafening!
Max threw back his head and howled with pain as his ears pressed flat against his skull and his hackles raised.
Ow, Ow, Ow! Max ears hurt! Ears hurt!
"What the hell just happened?!" Simon shouted, looking up.
Ears hurt! AroooOOOooo! Ow! Ow! Ow!
"Emergency air horns! We need to leave. NOW!" Corwin responded with urgency.
"Since we have Tarzan and Max with us, we can't use the hoverboards. We'll have to make a run for it."
Connor shook his head at me. "We can't wait for the crows any longer," he said.
"Let's go." I said with finality.
We had run out of time.
We all took off on foot, following Tarzan's lead towards the southeastern part of the campus, with Max scampering between us.
The air horns blared from every single building we passed, causing my panic to accelerate until I was almost overwhelmed with terror. But that was not the worst of it. There was another, more pressing issue.
I was in big trouble!
I was running as fast as I could, but there was no way I could keep up with the dog, the ape, the young boy, or the long-legged guys.
I was simply too short and too weak to maintain my sprint alongside the group. My lungs were unable to pump enough oxygen to my body to maintain my speed, and try as I might, my legs could not keep up.
I was about to give up when the twins looped their arms around mine and levitated me off the ground, lending me their strength so we could continue moving forward.
As suddenly as they started, the air horns fell silent.
We had barely reached the junction where Alder Alley opened up onto Gargamond Circle when the twins held up their hands, signaling us to hold back.
Their mage instincts were up at full gear and they could sense a strong anomaly. At first, I could not put my finger on what the problem was except that, after the deafening air sirens, the air was notably quiet.
And then I realized what the problem was.
It was too quiet.
A stray slip of paper blew across the empty courtyard, its rustling sound the only noise we could hear above the faint whisper of the torrid wind. We looked at each other, our eyes glinting with the fervor pitch of fear and trepidation.
Something felt horribly wrong in the air, and it was more than that pungent, acrid, burned metal smell.
The usual sounds of activity coming from the classrooms, the shops, the ball field, the outdoor pool area, the amphitheater, and the Esplanade area had all been silenced.
There was no movement other than the eerie rustling of the fan palms from a stray hot zephyr blowing through the deserted central courtyard.
Tarzan froze in place, his head dipped into an aggressive stance. His eyes roamed the open courtyard and the Esplanade, searching.
Max lowered his head, growling. His hackles were raised, his muscles tensed. He sniffed the charred air, seeking for the source of the unease.
Simon's blue eyes were large and filled with fear and uncertainty.
The twins perked their heads up as their bodies lowered, tensing into a fighter's defensive stance.
I froze in place, my mind cast around searching for any signs of animal life.
There was none.
I was about to tell the group of the distinct lack of wild life in the area when, without warning, Tarzan scooped me up and rolled back into Alder Alley.
He threw me up against the lee side of the building, scraping my back against the rough stucco wall.
I heard all three mages yell out in unison, a single Protection Bubble Command.
"Baohuwuomen!"
In the space of a single heartbeat, I felt the whoosh of moving air as a shield bubble pop over us. I barely managed to take a single sweet breath before the oxygen inside the bubble was sucked away.
BOOM!!!