Code of Shadows

Chapter 23: Travels

We traveled for weeks on end. Nothing and Nobody came into sight. And definitely no boundary out of Almosa. Each day was the same, get up at dawn, walk out, stop at dusk. The pattern didn't change.

By day 7, Aala had cut our rations in half and there was less food every meal, which was now twice a day. Each and every night I found myself in the dream realm fighting off all varieties of demons as I became more and more tired. There was only one night that nothing attacked me, but that night was still restless and uncomfortable. Very little was said during the time that we were hiking. When we stopped at night Aala would give me extensive lessons in fighting, Latin, or casting spells.

She corrected everything she could. Wether it was posture or pronunciation or how I held the sword, she always had something to say. About a week and a half into the trip she started only talking to me in Latin. I had learned what I could in Pleaci and what she had told me, but this felt like I was stretching my brain out to dry. It was hard to start with, but it honestly improved my Latin by leaps and bounds.

By the end of the third week I could tell she was getting desperate for more things to teach me. Belle consumed and stored all the information like she was a dry sponge. She took it all in, then stored it in a huge mental memory library she had created in my head.

My mind space had changed a lot since we left Pleaci. Belle had started to create rooms and hallways throughout my head. My inner mind was my only place of comfort. It was where I could imagine anything and it could come true. It just went to show the power of the mind.  

The pattern finally broke after one extremely strenuous day. Aala plopped down on a large fallen stump right next to the path we were forging. She didn't make a sound. She just patted the stump next to her. I pulled my pack of my back and sat down with a large sigh.

"We are about to cross over into Cortez," Aala said. I nodded my head, not quiet enthusiastically. "We will be meeting up with your family in a few hours." That is what did it. My face broke out in a big smile. "But before we do that," my smile was gone instantly, but I let her continue, "We need to get all of your facts straight. So lets start from the beginning.

"The first time you used magic was when you were 6. Most Fantasies even Belle's don't access magic until they are between 8 and 10. You glitched, which takes most Fantasies several years to learn. Your next major use of magic was when you were 11, and you made Arin stop having a fit right before your parents came home. You used nomieranosa, a power that sooths and calms those around you, which is noramally mastered by 14 year olds. Your distance between your first and second major uses of magic is extrememly large. For most Fantasies there is at most a year, but for you, there was 5 years." I rubbed my forehead in confusion.

"Now, lets fast forward to your water balloon fight. There is no such thing as a freezer on a car. you used ice magic, a subclass of water, which is rare because your magic strong suits are Earth, Air, and Energy. That was when Almosa realized that you were a Fantasy and not just a powerful magic user. They had already been moving on some plans to bring you to the capitol, but that convinced them to move you quickly. That night, the Prime Justice came to me and talked me through 'my assignment' and told me who you were. He asked for advice on meeting you, and I told him to bring you to us immediately. I figured since you had already been discovered we couldn't sneak you out like most fantasies. So I thought I might as well bring you closer to me where you could be carefully monitored. We next set up a meeting that fit into the Prime Justices schedule to talk to you so you understood who you were.

"As you remember, the meeting didn't go so well. You didn't take the information very well, then you were attacked by a Malacri and I was called to save you using that device that Jamison pulled out. I was out of practice and failed to keep you completely safe." Aala rubbed her face. "The Malacri gave you one blow to the head which gave you a concussion. You were asked not to be moved because you were self healing yourself through your sleep. When you woke we had you leave almost immediately to avoid another attack. We took you to the train station and put you in a 3D modeling vessel. We played a short clip of what the outdoors looked like to fool you into thinking that we were showing you everything. You arrived and settled into the house that was suppose to make you feel important. Then you know what happened from there.

"You met me when I pretended to be ecstatic about the assignment, then I told you the lies that the government had taught me.

"You know the truths now about some of the lies I was forced to tell. I told you the truth about Mason, but you were not the only Fantasy we knew of, Almosa knows of Gobeithio--the place all Fantasies call home. They just cannot enter the chain of islands that form this place. The Apeachian Boarder only lets allies of Gobeithio into the surrounding waters, and Almosa cannot hack Gobeithio's Cyclopos system. Again we have it enchanted so that only countries that Gobeithio has an alliance with can enter through the Cycloposes.

The list of explanations of everything that had happened to me got longer and longer. It made me realize just how much I had been through--just way too much. Aala continued to talk. We went from training with Guru to Belle fighting the Malacri in Windsdover. The list just grew, and everything grew more complicated, but everything just seamed to clear up. Everything just seemed to line up and flip into place like I was just completing a puzzle. When Aala finally stopped talking the sun was going just about to set.

"We need to get going to meet everyone," Aala said. "They should be waiting for us just around the corner." I gaped at her. My family had been so close, yet she hadn't told me?! 

I shot up and grabbed my bag. "Lets go. I want to see them," I squeaked excitedly.

We walked about 5 minutes further before we came to what I was waiting for. I turned the corner and saw a messy, ruffled, and dirty head that had brownish/blond hair on it. I screeched as I recognized the person, or more like people in front of me.

"Arin!" I screamed with joy. Arin turned around and gave me one of his playful grins. I ran into him and picked up his small body. I squeezed him and I kissed his forehead. I then felt a pair of strong arms around me and I smiled. Dad, then another person joined the hug. I laughed, then cried in my joy of seeing my family. We were in a tight bundle of sobbing and laughing when our reunion was cut short.

"I am sorry to interrupt your family reunion. But I would like to take a shower and eat a nice meal before I head over Almosa's boarder line." Aala's interruption was short and sweat, and to the point. All four of us separated from each other, and the attention was then turned to the one person in the group that I didn't know.

He was standing at the edge of the clearing awkwardly watching  our procession. My eyes met his, and his face went into complete shock. He recovered a second later, and tried to smile at me. I looked at Aala, she nodded, then I approached the stranger.

"Hi," I stammered. "My name is Cait."

The man in front of me straightened his back as he finally got his surprise under control.

"Sorry for my reaction. I just have never seen anyone with purple eyes." I smiled. Most people reacted just like he did when they first saw my eyes, but I had been around almost the same group of people my whole life, and then when I went to Pleaci, people thought that my eye color was the way it was through contacts. People all over Pleaci wore colored contacts to make their eye color different. They thought I was no different. But here, were no one had ever seen me before my eyes were an oddity.

"Zorach," Aala said. "You are being rude. You need to introduce yourself!"

"Oh sorry," Zorach mumbled. "My name is Zorach, and I work for SUFIOP just like Aala, but I work on bringing people in and out of Almosa without being seen. Which brings us to how we will get all five of you across the boarder into Cortex.

"The boarder is 20 miles from the city, and from there, another 5 miles. It will take about three days to cross that distance. Normally it would take two, but the woods are so dense and the chance that you will make it through without some unnatural sightings is small," Zorach rambled on for a little bit more, and I didn't pay much attention until the last part. "Five is too big of a group to have cross over into Cortex at once. You will have to go in a group of four and a one person group." I groaned as I did the math in my head. Either me or Aala would have to  go by ourselves to Cortex. "Who is going to be that one person?" Zorach asked. I looked at Aala, then said what I was dreading.

"I will do it."

PS. The picture attached is what I imagine the cites looking like, except they are flat and there are no windows anywhere. Plus there is like a bubble that connects to the  outside circle/sphere outside that looks like a bubble.