Wielder

Chapter 6 - The Unknown World

The magic of the portal spat Darrel into the next world in a belch of black smoke. The world's contamination had consumed every bit of the portal, drowning him in magic that felt slimy and cold. He coughed and waved his hand in front of his face, trying to clear away the stench of death and decay. 

   What waited for him was exactly what he had expected: a whole lot of nothing. Stripped of all signs of life or civilization, the flat land lay completely barren for miles in every direction. Sporadically, the remnants of a bush or tree sprouted from the dusty surface, but they weren't much more than a patch of fire-torched sticks. A howling wind swept across the empty space, whistling a deep, dark warning. 

   The darkness that leeched from the portal covered a great deal of the ground's expanse. Across the horizon, it swallowed the world in black. Only the sky held any sort of color, a muddled and barely lit purple-blue, and it swirled above like an abstract painting. 

   It stretched on and on, endlessly open, empty, and dead: a beautiful, haunting nightmare. 

   Michael and Alie stumbled off the portal a moment later, waving away the smoke of its contamination. "Ugh," Alie groaned, once she'd stepped clear of the cloud. "What the heck was that?"
   "Bad magic," Darrel said miserably. "Welcome to The Unknown World. Try not to absorb anything."

   "I don't think I could if I wanted to," Alie grimaced, frowning down at the waves of black smoke pooling around her feet. "It's gross."

   "Think anyone will try to follow us here?" Michael asked, glancing back at the portal. Its blue glow had lessened significantly, overshadowed almost completely by the dark haze of death. 

   "I doubt it. But, just in case, take this." He held out his pistol. 

   Michael lifted an eyebrow, taking the weapon with a cautious hand. "You trust me with this?"

   "I'm going to be putting Alie between you and me," Darrel replied, shedding his backpack and yanking open the main pocket. "Now, let's see if I can find that map..."

   "Do I get a weapon?" Alie asked. A hint of excitement laced her nervous tone. 

   Darrel lifted a warm, flirtatious smile to her. "You have all the weapon you need, Sweetheart."

   Her countenance fell. "You mean, the magic?"

   He gave her a confirming wink. 

   "I have no idea what I'm doing with it, though."

   "Don't worry, Love, I'll teach you." Finding what he had been searching for, Darrel pulled a scrolled parchment from his backpack and threw it back over his shoulders. He unrolled it, holding it up to what dim light still shone from the portal. 

   Michael peered at the parchment over his shoulder. "Convenient that you have a map of a world you claim no one goes to."

   "Very," Darrel agreed, a wicked grin spreading across his face. "I never wanted to end up here, but I knew it would be smart to be prepared, just in case. Cost me a pretty penny to get ahold of, too."

   "You mean, you didn't steal it?"

   "Maybe I did, maybe I didn't." Darrel glared at him over his shoulder, his tempers flaring. "Guess you'll never know."

   "There's barely anything on it," Alie observed, either oblivious to the tension forming between him and her boyfriend, or choosing to be a distraction from it. "What does it even say?"

   "We're here, at the Safeton portal," Darrel explained. "There's another portal leading out to The Marketplace, here." He pointed to the other side of the map. "It looks like there's a bit of a path still intact that we can follow. It should wind us around the bigger cliffs and more dangerous areas. But we'll still have to defend ourselves and be on guard the whole way."