Estyr

Chapter Six

Chapter Six

It was all surreal to Jack. He was feeling numb but not from the cold night air. He felt so because his mind found it impossible to process the kind of pain he was in and so it just shutdown. He looked down at the mound of earth under which his mother now lay. The woman that had always seemed indomitable in his eyes, was gone. Looking back, it now seemed rather petty of him to have been mad at her. As justified as it had felt at the time, it now felt empty. The void left by her departure swallowed up any feelings of anger or resentment. He desperately wished he could take back the few last days he’d had with her. He wished he could have a redo so he could tell her just how much she mattered to him, just how much he loved her.

A hand landed on his shoulder. Jack turned to find Lyra standing beside him. No tears streaked her face, but unlike Jack who had run out of tears, Lyra seemed to be suffering silently. They had no digging implements with them, it was Lyra that had dug the grave. The ease and speed with which she did it, told of one that had done this too many times over.  Jack could barely imagine what having to go through this many times over was like. He was damn near being swept under in the sea of remorse and pain that he found himself swimming in. How could one endure this a second and third time without coming apart at the seams.

“We need to get moving,” Lyra said quietly.

It seemed almost ridiculous to Jack that there were still things to do. How had the world not come to a stop? How was it possible that everything else in the world moved on as it usually did? Didn’t they know what had just happened? Was the world so cold as to go on living and pushing forward despite his agony? Logically, he knew all these were stupid questions. People lost their parents every day and yet his own life had continued on as usual. There was no reason why the world would come to a standstill because he’d lost his. However, pain muddled reason and made it in that moment logical for him to wonder at all those questions.

He numbly turned around to Lyra, letting her take control of the situation. It allowed him the reprieve of not having to figure out what to do next while enduring pain he’d never thought possible. Lyra seemed to instinctually understand what he was feeling and doing, so she turned as well and started off in the same direction that they’d initially been headed in before his mother showed up.

Elmi, for some reason, had climbed on to a tree a distance off and blended in with the leaves as she watched them go through the burial. It seemed that the dark elf was not comfortable out in the open. She had to be disguised or hidden in some way. Jack wasn’t bothered by the fact that she didn’t join them in mourning for his mother. She neither knew nor cared about her. Had she joined them, it would have been a disingenuous display of emotion, not a real one, and that would have bothered Jack a lot more than any dearth of emotions from her. Besides, in the state that he was in, he didn’t have it in him to care much about what the dark elf was doing. Elmi, silently dropped down beside him when he passed under the tree and moved with them.

“Stop here,” Lyra instructed after they’d been walking for another two minutes.

She took a few steps forward on her own. Jack watched numbly as she raised both her hands. Luminous pick runes crawled to her fingertips from her elbows as she started chanting in an arcane language. It was as if they were responding to her. Runes appeared on the ground very much like an LED light coming on. The runes each came on individually until a whole circle of runes about six feet in diameter that flashed the same pink as the runes on her forearms, appeared. The more feverish her chant and faster Lyra spoke, the more the runes glowed. Eventually, the runes began to spin round and round with ever-increasing speed so that they ceased to be individual and well-defined runes and blurred into a continuous circle about an inch thick.

After about three minutes of continuous chanting, the circle began to rise of the ground. Jack wondered how Lyra managed to go on for so long without stumbling over her words, was she even breathing? His eyes moved from Lyra to the circle. It had risen to waist level and Jack now understood what Lyra had been doing. From above the circle, nothing out of the ordinary appeared to be there. But as the circle rose higher and higher, two columns of exotic glowing stones were revealed rising from the ground. Whatever spell, Lyra had used in cloaking the doorway was no casual spell. It was almost as if she was struggling against the circle that was slowly but steadily rising higher. Jack got the impression that if she got anything wrong in her incantation, it would drop back down to the ground. She’d be forced to start all over again if that happened.

As the ring reached about seven feet into the air, it was revealed that there weren’t two columns of stone but actually one archway. The two columns were connected by a semicircle of the same kind of stone, only at the very midpoint of the stone arch was the largest diamond Jack had ever seen. The thing seemed to be as big as Jack’s head and glowed even brighter than the other stones that made up the archway. The odd thing about the light is that it didn’t cast shadows. It was almost as if it was in some way not really there. Which was odd, considering the fact that he was looking right at it.

Jack tried to look through the center of the doorway to the other side. However, rather than an open view as any doorway would allow, Jack was greeted by a film of white light. It looked like it was translucent however, Jack couldn’t exactly tell whether the shapes and forms he saw moving in the light were on the other side or the result of the film of light itself.

“Does it open somewhere safe?” Elmi spoke up. Her tone was stoic, revealing nothing of what she felt.

“No, it opens into Sydrar’s lair,” Unlike the dark elf’s tone of voice, Lyra’s voice was laced with sarcasm and clear dislike for the dark elf.

“Might I remind you that my life depends on my ability to keep Jack safe,” Elmi came back her voice still revealing no emotion apart from being a lot colder.

“It’s been almost two years since I last used this doorway,” Despite the clear dislike still present in her voice, it was a straight answer. “I left it in the care of a number of my associates, but with our world being what it is, who knows what awaits us on the other side,” she added.

“Are any of your associates even a little competent?” Elmi went on to pose and despite Lyra not answering, it was clear she was bristling at the question.

Neither one of them was looking at the other but it felt like if someone struck a match in the air between the two of them, there would be an explosion. Under any other circumstances Jack would have been bothered by this, maybe even have tried to reconcile them. In the present moment, however, he couldn’t have cared any less. Tightening his grip around the metal rod he’d taken from his mother’s cold hand, he walked forward. “Jack, wai…” Elmi’s voice didn’t fade away, instead, it was immediately cut off almost as if someone had pressed mute as soon as Jack stepped through the film of light between the pillars…

*******

“Jack wait!”

One second Jack was beside her, the next, Lyra’s eyes only caught his form as he disappeared through the light from the doorway. Her jaws clenched with anger. How reckless does one have to be to walk through a doorway whose exit they didn’t know? He knew no magic though despite the fact that he was at least decent in fighting. ‘At least decent’ wasn’t enough to keep you alive in a fight where your opponents were either already dead and wouldn’t be killed a second time by a good punch, or a powerful wizard or witch at the height of their powers from years of training, as the one that had been after them. While there were many evil weakling wizards and witches out there, Sydrar only ever accepted the strongest into his ranks.

Part of her anger, however, was directed at herself. The reason Jack had been able to move from her side and through the doorway without her noticing in time or being able to stop him, was because, in a moment of weakness, Lyra had been considering turning around and never walking through the door ever again. In the two years that she’d been on this side, she’d never forgotten how bad it was on the other side. But at no point in the whole two years was she more keenly aware of just how bad it was than just now as she stood before the doorway ready to walk back into it all.

A breeze blew past her. Lyra’s head turned to find that Elmi had moved past her using her speed. For a second Lyra found herself feeling jealous. For her, moving through the doorway wasn’t a choice. It was self-preservation, pure and simple. She didn’t have to think about whether she wanted to go back to it all or not. There was no choice for her in the matter. If Jack came to harm or worse and she wasn’t there to do all she could to protect him, then her life would be forfeit. The dark elf had to go through the doorway, Lyra on the other hand, didn’t. She looked down at her feet when she remained rooted to the spot for a few seconds too long. Did she really have it in her to step through?

Lyra turned her back to the doorway. Her jaws clenched as her choice became clear to her. Walking through the doorway was hard. But soon as she turned her back to the doorway, it immediately became clear to her that hard as the first choice was for her, the other one was impossible. There was just no way she could walk away from the doorway. From her life, from her friends, from her masters, from the evil that scourged her land. It was a hard and terrible life, but it was her life, and there was just simply no way she could walk and have peace ever again. She would be haunted to the end of her days with her own cowardice and questions of not only what happened to Jack, but what could have been? So, she turned around, and without allowing herself any more time to think the choice through, she stepped through the doorway.

The first thing that hit her was the heat. Hierra, the desert realm, was just that, a dessert. The transition from a cold night to the scorching heat of the dessert was noted only a split second before the smell of rotting corpses. Her jaws clenched, it was a smell she’d never get used to despite having encountered it countless times over. It was the one weakness of most of Sydrar’s forces. Eventually, natural decomposition took them out. Until they stopped moving however, they still posed a very real danger and had to be dealt with.

Lyra’s eyes quickly found Elmi making short work of three corpse soldiers. They were at the stage of decomposition where their insides liquefied which made the air around them that much more putrid as Elmi dismembered them. Their skin had turned a pale and sickly greyish green, and worms were coming out of every orifice on the corpses except for their eyes which remained jute orbs. Lyra couldn’t really see the dark elf at the speed she was moving at. She could only tell that the elf was using a sword given how parts were flying off the three corpse soldiers. It looked like they were inside a blender given how fast they were being cut down. But despite her speed, Elmi’s skill with the sword was no doubt on display as her speed seemed to take nothing away from her precision.

First to go were their hands, each losing them from the wrist. Everything from the angle of the cut to even the way the part sailed through the air and dropped to the ground, seemed to be a replication of what she had done before. Next to go was their forearms as she sliced through their elbows. This was quickly followed by their shoulders, then their knees, and finally. Their abdomen. Lyra turned her gaze to the side when rotting viscera spilled onto the ground around the corpses that had barely had a chance to react to any of the attacks. She turned away not only because she was disgusted by the spilling entrails, but also because of pain. She recognized the corpses. These were the associates she’d left guarding the doorway. These were her friends.

Sydrar must have gotten to them through one of his many followers. Which meant he knew about her and her mission. From the stage of decomposition, her friends were in, Lyra could tell that they’d been killed in the last month or two. It was a hard pill to swallow, they were dead because of her. Had she been faster in finding Jack, she could have possibly returned earlier and found them alive. Her eyes popped back open at the thought and she turned her head back to the fight, looking this way and that. She wasn’t interested in the corpses, instead, her eyes fixed on Elmi when she came to a stop. “Where is Jack?” she asked when she couldn’t see him anywhere.

Elmi, who’d somehow managed to remain untouched by any of the rotting flesh or putrid liquid from the corpses looked around herself. It was almost as if she was trying to verify something that made no sense to her. When she turned back to him, Lyra could see both concern and confusion in her eyes. She was perfectly aware that neither one of the two emotions were for Jack. Her life now depended on her ability to keep him safe. If anything happened to him, then her life could very easily be forfeit. This was the reason for the look she now had. “I didn’t see him when I crossed over,” She stated.

“How can that be?” Lyra wondered out loud. “You were right behind him! It’s not like he was running,” she added.

“Does your doorway open up to any other place?” The dark elf asked her eyes narrowing at Lyra with suspicion.

“Don’t be thick!” Lyra shot back her own worry rising up within her. “Doorways only have one exit and you know that,” she snapped walking up to where the dark elf stood her eyes scanning the area around looking for any sign of Jack. She was right, that all realm crossing doorways only had one exit. She, however, found herself at a loss on how to explain a missing Jack. Sure, she had stayed behind a few seconds longer than the rest of them, but not long enough for Jack to vanish, especially given the terrain of the place.

Despite the fact that Hierra was chockfull of doorways between various realms, only a few of them were out in the open. Most were well hidden using both magical spells and the natural terrain of the realm. The doorway Lyra had just used was at the foot of a cliff. It had been disguised using magic to look like the entrance to a very shallow cave with nothing of any interest inside. She had known when she cast the spell two years prior that a powerful enough sorcerer would see right through her spell, so she’d given it her best attempt to be slow, deliberate, and careful with the weaving of the spell. The fact that it had held together for two whole years was a testament to that, however, it clearly hadn’t amounted to much.

The area before the doorway, however, was open terrain with barely a shrub to hide behind for almost a mile around. There was no way that Jack was fast enough to disappear from sight even with the time she had taken in crossing over into this realm. But then as far as she could see, there wasn’t the slightest trace of Jack to be found anywhere.

“Well, unless you are suggesting he vanished into thin air, you have some explaining to d…” the last syllable of the statement was lost as Elmi was thrown ten feet back from where she’d just been standing by the spell she’d just cast…

******

Barely a second after landing on her back, in an almost feline fashion, she’d kicked up from the ground onto her feet. She’d also conjured a sword, and now gripped it with both hands, ready to ready defend herself from any other ensuing attacks. When her narrowed eyes landed on Lyra, however, she wasn’t even looking in her direction. Elmi followed her gaze to a third woman who was now standing barely fifteen feet away from them. How it was that the woman had managed to get this close without Elmi knowing, she didn’t know, she, however, didn’t like it at all.

Elmi’s gaze turned to the cliff immediately behind where she had been standing before Lyra sent her flying, embedded in the rock were three small blades very much akin to the kind that she herself had on her person. A thick black tar was dripping off the rock with the blades embedded in them. If the wounds from the blades themselves hadn’t done her in, then the fact that they were cursed would have left her with only seconds to live soon as they made contact. Lyra had just saved her life.

The woman stood facing Lyra looking a bit annoyed that her assassination attempt had just been foiled. She had shoulder-length straight black hair that framed her expressionless face. Even without seeing her ears which were covered by her air, she knew that the woman was no elf. Not only was she too short to be an elf, her azure eyes were human. She, however, must have learned her stealth from an elf, even the blades she used were elven. She certainly threw them with the strength and precision a well-trained elf did.

Very much like they had been doing a few seconds before, her eyes scanned the area around them almost as if she was looking for someone. “I see Kiran didn’t make it,” she spoke in a high pitched tone of voice.

“Let me guess, old man? About so high?” Lyra said raising her hand slightly above her own head. “Really annoying voice?” she stated and without awaiting a response, went on. “Yeah, things didn’t exactly go his way,” Lyra said in a tone that made whoever they were talking about seem more like a footnote rather than someone she took seriously. “Now,” Lyra’s voice became much colder. “If you don’t wish to end up like he did, I suggest you step as side.

Looking at her, one wouldn’t have even been able to tell whether the woman had heard Lyra or not. If she had, she clearly didn’t care in the least. Her eyes once again surveyed the area around them. “I see Commander Izora is not with you,” she astutely observed. “So, it seems things didn’t exactly go her way either,” she pointed out.

A cocky smile crossed Lyra’s lips. “She’s only a minute behind,” she told the barefaced lie as a bluff to give them whatever leverage they could gain.

However, once again, it was hard to tell whether it was that she hadn’t heard Lyra or that she just didn’t care.

“You should at least try to be more convincing when you lie,” The woman replied after a while. She clearly saw right through Lyra’s bluff. She cast a side glance at Elmi, then turned her gaze back to Lyra. Despite the casual manner in which she had done it, it was clear to Elmi that she was planning to attack. She was simply making a mental note of what direction she could expect her to attack from and turning her attention back to the one she considered to be the bigger threat.

Elmi’s jaws clenched at the dismissal, her fingers tightening their grip around the hilt of the sword she held. The woman wouldn’t be the first to have dismissed her at a glance. Elmi intended to make sure she also ranked among those that regretted it right before they met their end.

Elmi now regretted having attacked the corpses as she had. Both her fear at the possibility of losing her life and anger at being in the situation she now found herself in, had made her go at them with more ferocity than she needed to. There had been no other people in the area and given the fact that they’d been made into corpse soldiers, it was clear they weren’t allied with Sydrar. They had been opponents that had been killed and made into unwilling servants after their death.

It hadn’t taken much on her part to put together that these were the associates Lyra had been talking of. So, as a means of indirect retaliation, she had gone overboard with them. In so doing, however, she had inadvertently allowed the woman before them, the real opponent, to her speed. As such, she had lost the element of surprise in as far as a quick attack before she could respond was concerned. Still, few people in the world could keep up with her once she started moving.

“But even if she were only a minute behind you,” The woman went on her gaze becoming more dangerous. “I’ll only need seconds with you,” she said, not in any way trying to hide the threat in her voice. “Before I do anything, however, I need to know where Queen Elysia’s son is,” she questioned.

Elmi’s gaze turned to Lyra’s, who’d also turned to her. For how long, was anyone’s guess, but there was very little doubt in either one of them that the woman had been closely watching the doorway. If she didn’t know where Jack was, then clearly, she hadn’t seen him emerge on this side when he crossed the doorway. If he hadn’t emerged on this side, however, then where was Jack?

The shared glance between them, it seemed, was all the woman needed to know that neither one of them had an answer to offer that she was interested in.

Elmi didn’t develop her speed as an aid in fighting. She’d done it because to remain stealthy and hidden, there were situations where one must cross large open areas and avoid detection. However, at this moment, there was no doubt that had she been any slower, she would have been dead before the fight even began. In spite of having known that she was about to attack, she had expected the woman to go after Lyra before she turned her attention to her. She’d clearly known that they anticipated this and chose to do the opposite.

The blades barely missed her as Elmi moved off to the right. She, however, with great difficulty, had to bring the considerable momentum her speed generated to a stop and change direction after moving only three feet. A spell from the woman sent a green glowing orb of light flying through the air to where her head would have been a second later. Elmi came to a stop where she had been standing initially only a fraction of a second before. Except now, blades were embedded in the rock behind her also dripping the black tar substance.

Elmi’s gaze turned to the rock where the green orb had hit. What had looked like an orb of light as it moved through the air, immediately turned into a thick gelatinous and very corrosive substance that was quite literally eating away at the rock right before her eyes. While the spell itself wouldn’t have taken off her head, she no doubt would have been a headless corpse in a matter of seconds.

The woman, seemingly with effortless ease, missed a whole hail of swords from Lyra by weaving here and there. Most people who were quite good at magic tended to neglect the other aspects of combat believing their magic would be all that was needed to beat any foe they ever faced. The woman before them clearly wasn’t one of those people. In the time that she had been missing the hail of swords, Lyra had closed the distance between them, a sword in her hand. That sword was now cutting through the air as the woman missed every attack Lyra made almost as if it was a dance she knew by heart. Elmi’s eyes narrowed, this was her chance!

Elmi didn’t run directly at her instead, she circled around her, much like a hawk circling around its mark on the ground looking for the best angle to swoop in from. Unlike a hawk, however, she held the hilt of the sword with both hands at her side ready to take off the head of the woman just as the woman had intended to do hers. Elmi’s circling came to a sudden stop as she changed direction and moved straight for the woman when she was sure she had completely moved out of her field of vision.

The woman had been missing another strike from Lyra when Elmi swung the sword at the nape of her neck. With a sudden burst of speed that Elmi hadn’t foreseen, the woman circled Lyra and kicked her hard in the lower back. Everything seemed to slow down as Lyra was forced forward to meet with her sword which was now swinging not at the back of the woman’s neck, but right at Lyra’s throat. The woman now stood behind Lyra, looking over her shoulder directly at Elmi, her eyes shining with malevolence, a triumphant smile playing on her lips. This was exactly what she had been planning. She hadn’t dismissed her, thought Elmi as she found herself looking directly at the woman. Instead, the woman had studied her. In very much the same way she had taken apart the corpses, the woman had taken apart her fighting style and was trying to use it against her.

Part of what had made Elmi the excellent assassin that she was, was the fact that she was aware of her limits. It was this fact that now saved Lyra’s life from what the woman had intended to do. Elmi had always known that she wasn’t the strongest of individuals and wouldn’t be able to withstand a head to head direct confrontation with most enemies. It was why she had honed her stealth skills to be what they now were. Most enemies that one had no hope of ever beating in combat, were just as easy to kill as any other when they didn’t see you coming.

It was for this reason, that Elmi had committed herself to training as much as she did. She’d left nothing to chance, any skill that she had she’d perfected. She made sure that when the time came that she needed to use it, she wouldn’t even have to think about it. She’d make it as close to a reflex as she could so that she could do it at the drop of a hat. It was because of all that training, that she was able to release the magic she had used to conjure the sword for a split second, long enough for Lyra to go sailing past her. She then conjured it once more as it continued its arch still aimed at the woman. All this, without slowing down in the slightest.

Elmi’s eyes widened as the woman’s hands came together in a loud clap. The sword stopped dead cold in mid-swing caught between the woman’s open palms.  The smile on her lips widened appreciatively in a psychopathic manner. Clearly, she was impressed by the fact that she hadn’t decapitated Lyra. Elmi, however, wasn’t in the least bit concerned with nor interested in impressing her. She let go off the sword she’d been holding and immediately conjured another. The next swing came arched upwards from the left side looking to cut her open all the way from her abdomen all the way up to her right shoulder. The woman’s smile only seemed to widen at this as another clap sounded.

Elmi, however, had foreseen this.

In much the same way she had done with Lyra, Elmi let the sword vanish just as it was about to be caught between the palms of the woman, it rematerialized soon as it was past her palms. With the move she’d made by circling Lyra and sending her hurtling towards her, Elmi had known right then that she could keep up with her speed. If she was going to beat her, she couldn’t rely on her speed alone, she’d have to be cunning as well. Just because she had lost the element of surprise with her speed, didn’t mean she couldn’t do the unexpected. To think she knew all what to expect from her just because she knew of Elmi speed would be a costly mistake. This time, it was Elmi’s turn to smile as the sharp blade cut through the woman’s body. To most others, it would require a lot of effort, but with her strength, it was like a hot knife through butter.

The smile, however, didn’t last long as Elmi realized what had really happened. She had seen the blade disappear into her body and it had felt like she was cutting through the woman. However, as she looked at the now rapidly melting sword and the unharmed woman, it was clear that the same spell that she had cast at Elmi was protecting her like a second skin. The sword hadn’t really been penetrating her body, it had been melting on contact much the same way a wax candle would if it came into contact with a very hot surface. Her shields were corrosive enough to eat away at the sword faster than the rocks that had suffered the brunt of her spell. What had felt like cutting through her, had actually just been Elmi’s dragging the sword across the woman’s torso cutting through her clothes but not actually harming her.

The spell must have covered the whole of her body except for the palms as it would be rather inconvenient to melt everything she touched. This explained why her sword hadn’t melted when the woman blocked it the first time. Elmi assumed that the soles of her feet and by extension her shoes were also exempt as it would be that much better to melt everywhere and everything you stepped on. The fact that Lyra also wasn’t being eaten at from the small of her back outwards, also confirmed this.

On her part, the woman looked shocked that Elmi had come close to ending her life, despite the fact that it had been unsuccessful in the end. It was now clear why she had just been evading Lyra’s attacks but not making any offensive moves herself apart from the spell she’d cast at Elmi. In addition to her attempt to get Elmi to decapitate Lyra, she was probably hoping that Lyra would either punch or kick at her. At which point, the spell that was protecting her would probably have melted the limb that came into contact with her if not the whole body. Why she had not just reached out and touched Lyra was probably best explained by a psychopathic and sadistic disposition on the part of the woman. She probably just wanted to see an attack by Lyra turn out to be her undoing.

The look of shock quickly morphed into a murderous one. The woman clearly had lost her playful air and any desire to toy around with them and was now ready to kill them. However, before she could do anything else, Elmi dropped the rapidly melting sword and moved back, creating distance between them. All this had happened within the space of about five seconds so that as when she came to a stop quite a distance off, Lyra was just rising to her feet. There was a measure of surprise and confusion in her eyes at what the woman had just done. She too, was clearly reassessing her as an opponent.

“Don’t touch her” Elmi warned as Lyra’s fingers clenched into tight fists, her eyes narrowing at the woman. “She’s got some protective spell around her that destroys anything that comes into contact with it,” She explained when Lyra cast an inquisitive glance at her. All the while, Elmi kept randomly moving using her speed from point to point, both to keep from being an easy target and also to keep her from fully focusing on Lyra. She still needed something from her. “Where is the next doorway back to Estyr?” She shouted as she came to a stop fifty feet away from Lyra. In the next second, she was standing next to Lyra awaiting the answer.

“We first need to find Jack, or have you forgotten about him?” Lyra shot at her.

“If he dies, I die,” Elmi shot at her. “Believe me, I’ve not forgotten about him,” she added. “However, we won’t be of any use to him as a pair of corpses,” Elmi pointed.

It was clear to Elmi that by the look on her face that Lyra wanted to object to this, but she was fast coming to the same conclusion as she had. An enemy that you couldn’t touch either by weapons, or worse your own body, was an enemy you could harm and thus couldn’t beat. There was the option of magic, but it was clear that her magic far outpaced either of their magic, even if it was to be put together. Their only option in this fight, much as she hated to admit it, was to beat a hasty retreat. Every second longer they remained in this fight, increased the chances things would go horribly wrong.

“Two miles to the west,” Lyra stated as she jumped to the side to evade a spell from the woman. “There’s another false cave at the foot of the hill there. It’s marked by a cactus with a red flower on it that is about five hundred meters to the east of it,” Lyra answered. “We can get to it by…”

Whatever else she said, however, was lost to Elmi. She’d gotten what she needed from her. She ran in the direction she’d just been given at full speed…

*******

The change was immediate. While the air had been cold back on the other side, it was now warm here. That was about the only positive change in the transition. The air here felt thick and oppressively heavy, almost as if it was trying to get you to lie down and never get up ever again. There was the sense that bad things would be all that would happen from here on out and that nothing good would happen ever again. Given the fact that he was grieving, Jack hadn’t been consciously aware that he had any hope for the future. But as he stood there, he was forcefully made aware of it as he felt it being sucked out of him.

Whatever it was that was in the air, it amplified the grief Jack felt tenfold and made what he’d felt initially feel like a reprieve compared to what he now felt. Jack now felt more acutely the absence of his mother. The knowledge that he would never see her again. The pain of knowing that it was he that she had lost her life protecting. The misery of knowing that he’d been powerless to help her in any way. They all tortured him way worse now than before. Did he even deserve to live after being the reason his mother was dead? He should probably find the nearest sharpest object and slit his own…

The thought was cut short by the sound of something metallic being knocked and dropping to the floor and rolling for a bit before coming to a stop. With horror, Jack realized what he’d just been very seriously contemplating. The sound had just caught him before he’d given in to whatever this foreign influence was. It also took his attention out from within and turned it to his present surroundings. He was in a largely dark and dingy room that had a stale smell to it. The only reason he could see anything at all in the room was the light coming from the doorway behind him. There wasn’t anything in the room apart from a thick film of dust. The sound he’d heard had come from an adjoining room. Jack moved forward towards the door that was before him only a few paces away.

The next room looked a lot more like what one would expect to find in a house where people lived. There was a solitary table with three seats on the one end of the room and on the other were three cots. On the table was a which book and beside it, what seemed to be an actual feather quill and an inkpot that had long since dried up. There were no windows to the room, at least not the glass ones he was used to. The only inlet of light into the room was a hole left by a small section of the roof that had fallen in. Sunlight streamed in from the hole which felt odd to Jack given the fact that only about two minutes before, it had been the middle of the night. There was a fireplace before which there was an animal skin rag and a few utensils. Whoever had lived here had used the fireplace for both cooking and warming purposes. However, they hadn’t been here in quite some time. Just as it was in the other room, there was a thick layer of dust covering everything.

Everything except for a set of small footprints all around the floor. Whoever they belonged to, they had clearly been scouring the room. Jack’s eyes came to settle on what looked like an aluminum plate lying face down in the dust a few feet away from where the rest of the utensils were. There was a straight line cut through the dust from where the other utensils were to where the plate was. The trail it had followed as it rolled from where it had been to where it presently was. This must have been what had caught his attention.

Jack’s eyes scoured the room following the footprints to one of the corners of the rooms. “I know you are there,” he said his eyes fixed on the corner in question.

Jack was startled when a shout filled the room. From thin air, a small form materialized and ran at him with a small blade held high. He didn’t even have to think about it. The rod that had only been about a foot and a half a second before, almost as if it had read his mind and knew exactly what he intended to do, elongated to about six feet but no light blades appeared. In one fluid motion, Jack swung the metal rod at the small legs of the figure, hooking it right behind its knees and flipping him over. What was supposed to be a battle cry turned into a shocked yelp as the figure did a full flip in the air and fell face-first to the floor.

Jack remained on guard, closely watching the figure on the floor as he groaned in pain from the impact. Jack’s had assumed that a child had left the footprints given their size. This theory proved wrong the figure on the ground rolled onto its back still moaning in a wordless complaint. Jack found himself looking down at a thick though scraggly head of flame-red hair that merged with an equally thick mustache and even thicker beard so that there was barely any space left for the face except for two small eyes which were presently closed and a large bulbous nose. Even the eyebrows on the figures face were thick and long. This was no child, if the deep voice didn’t let on, then the very mature features left no doubt. It was a midget.

The eyes of the figure on the floor fluttered open and for a few seconds, he looked at the roof almost as if it was once again trying to gain its bearings. When, it seemed to Jack, confusion crossed its features almost as if it could understand or remember why it was on the floor. Jack momentarily wondered whether he had given him a concussion.

“Why is Dreko sleeping?” he murmured out loud to himself in a voice that clearly relayed that he was unaware of the presence of anyone else in the room. Jack assumed that Dreko was his name, this was only confirmed by his continued tirade. “Dreko has become lazy,” he went on muttering his voice becoming disapproving. “Sleeping in daylight! What would Elana think? What would subjects think?” He went on berating himself as his eyes found the hole in the roof through which sunlight was streaming in through.

There was another groan, this time of exertion as he pushed himself up off the floor. At full height, the top of Dreko's head barely came up to Jack’s navel. His small hands repeatedly patted down different parts of his dark grey leather clothing to get the dust off him. Despite his small stature and size of his hands, the sounds of the pats were surprisingly loud and firm. “A pig,” he spat almost as if he was cursing at himself. “That is what Dreko has become,” he said before launching into a tirade under his breath that jack could barely hear given his lowered tone of voice. He could understand none of what he said as what little he could hear if it was clearly in another language.

Jack let out a startled sound in response to a startled shout of shock that issued forth from the man when his eyes found Jack standing a few feet away from him. Jack couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like he’d cursed in some foreign language. His hand immediately reached for his waist but he clearly didn’t find what he was looking for as his eyes turned to his waist with a measure of confusion. His eyes scanned the floor around him and came to settle on the small blade he’d had in his grip, lying about seven feet away. His eyes turned to him again, clearly making the calculation in his head as to whether he could reach it before Jack reached him. “Eeh,” He intoned in his surprisingly deep voice. “No need for the fiend to do anything rash,” he said holding his hands up. The tips of his fingers just barely made it over his head.

It was almost comical the way he took a step towards the blade with his eyes fixed on Jack. Almost as if he didn’t look at the blade, then Jack wouldn’t know that that was what he was moving towards. Jack was also not sure what to think about being called a fiend. He was the one that had been attacked, he had only acted on self-defense and hadn’t even gone overboard in his reaction. The man before him, however, didn’t entirely seem to be in his right mind. “If we all keep calm, then Dreko and fiend can both leave this unharmed,” he stated taking another very obvious step towards the miniature knife on the floor. A small smile crossed his lips, Jack could only tell as the ends of his mustache seemed to pull apart slightly. “Who knows? Dreko may even show mercy,” he said in a self-confident manner that bordered on cocky.

Jack’s grip around his staff tightened when with surprising quickness, Dreko turned around and jumped at the blade. An unintended laugh burst forth from Jack when Dreko landed face-first on the floor, a cloud of dust rising around him. The tips of his fingers coming a whole foot short of the blade he’d leaped for.  Another groan of pain left Dreko as his face rose from the floor, his eyes probably to trying to find the blade. He had to turn on his side to look back at Jack who was still standing in the same place regarding him. Doing so revealed the whole of his front including the hair that covered his forehead, his mustache, and beard, had turned a light brown from the dust collected on the floor.

“Eeh,” he once again intoned. “Dreko was only joking you see,” he said with what Jack assumed was supposed to be a winning smile. Jack, however, couldn’t see it through his mustache. “Dreko miscalculated,” he muttered to himself. Whether he knew that he was talking loud enough to be heard or not, Jack wasn’t sure. He then suddenly turned back on his stomach and desperately crawled forward.

“Ha,” he sounded when he grabbed the hilt of the small knife and jumped to his feet. He was holding the knife out at him in what was supposed to be a threatening manner. However, given his small stature, the small size of the knife, and the fact that he was covered from head to toe in dust, Jack found it hard to feel threatened. The display he’d already put up and the fact that he still seemed to be muttering to himself under his breath, only added to this effect. Despite the fact that he was sure that he could take Dreko in a one to one fight, Jack raised both his hands. As if it could sense what he was doing, the staff retracted back to its shorter length. “I’m not your enemy, I don’t want to fight you,” Jack spoke for the first time.

A smile again crossed Dreko's lips as indicated by his mustache widening. “Ha, the fiend recognizes the futility of resistance,” he said leaving jack unsure whether this was another of his monologues or if he was the one being addressed. “Dreko wins again,” he said. This time it was addressed to him. “It was foolish of the fiend to think any other outcome possible!” He went on gloating. “Lay down your arms and all will be forgiven, fi…”

Jack reacted on instinct, the rod elongated back into a staff as he turned to the right and swung it through the air towards the floor. The three arrows that had been aimed at Dreko’s head we’re knocked out off their trajectory. Two of them hit the floor and the last one went wide by almost three feet. His head turned to find Elmi holding a bow in her hand with three more arrows already nocked also aimed at Dreko’s head. “What are you doing?” He asked with alarm. As an answer, Elmi let the arrows fly.

Jack’s staff again swung but this time he only got two of the three. “No!” He said as he turned towards Dreko.

Jack’s eyes widened when he found Dreko looking cross-eyed as he looked at the head of the arrow he was holding in his tight grip. Had it landed, it would have hit Dreko right between the eyes. “Trickery,” he said with disgust as if it was such a low thing that to even talk about it was distasteful. His eyes turned to Jack with disdain. It immediately became apparent what he was thinking. That Jack surrender had been a farce to get him to let down his guard. Jack found himself annoyed given the fact that he’d just saved Dreko’s life.

“If I’d have wished to trick you, you’d have had to grow a third arm for you to still be drawing breath!” Jack snapped pointing out that he was only the reason he was alive.

A look of vague understanding crossed Dreko’s features and for a moment, Jack thought he’d understand what had just happened. The look of disgust, however, snapped back into place. “The fiends multiply,” he spat his eyes fixed on something behind him. Jack turned around to find Lyra had crossed the doorway. Confusion crossed Jack’s features as he regarded Lyra who was breathing heavily, covered in sweat and bleeding from various wounds.

Lyra ignored everyone and everything else as she turned around towards the doorway and raised her hand to the large diamond at the top of the archway. She muttered a quick spell causing it to dislodge from the archway and cross the air into her raised open palm. Soon as the diamond lost contact with the doorway, all the light coming from it vanished, almost as if someone had flicked a switch. Another quickly muttered the spell and the rock was covered in a crimson cloud. A fine dust fell to the floor in a continuous stream from the red cloud.

Lyra, at last, turned her attention back to what was in the room. Even more shocking than the state she was in, was the pure and absolute rage that was in her eyes as they landed on Elmi. “You left me behind!” she roared crossing the distance between them in a few quick strides. Her fist was aflame as she sent it sailing through the air at the dark elf.

Lyra’s fist left a burning hole in the wooden wall as Elmi crossed to the other side of the room faster than one could blink. “Last time I checked, I was Jack’s sword, not yours,” she replied in an icy tone.

“I saved you,” This time, the words weren’t shouted, instead, they left Lyra’s lips in a menacing whisper. Lyra completely ignored the fire she’d just started.

The dark elf shrugged. “Your choice, I never asked you to,” she replied.

If before this moment Lyra had disliked Elmi, it had just morphed into pure hatred. Instead of flying off the handle and trying to kill the dark elf as the look in her eyes relayed she so desperately wanted to, the flames died from Lyra’s hands. She left her fighting stance and stood back up to full height. She turned her eyes back to Jack direction. Her eyes again narrowed and not in a good way, when they landed on Dreko who’d already thrown the arrow to his side and was again holding the small knife in his hand.

There was a loud pop in the room from the direction of Dreko. Jack had turned back to look at Lyra to see what she would do and possibly try and stop her if she tried to hurt Dreko. It was clear to Jack that the man wasn’t well in the head. His head turned back in Dreko’s direction to find he wasn’t there anymore. It was almost as if he’d vanished into thin air. “What did you do to him?” Jack asked turning back to  Lyra, afraid that he’d been to slow in stopping her from harming Dreko.

“Nothing. He teleported,” Lyra answered her voice still icy. “What a dwarf would be doing this far south is the better question. Not that I would expect you to ask it,” she snapped clearly still angry. “What I want to know is how you got here?” Lyra asked.

Jack’s brows furrowed as he found himself confused about a number of things. First was why Lyra seemed so angry? She’d been sad owing to the death of his mother when Jack left her. In the space of a few minutes, she seemed to have gone from sadness into a homicidal rage. The exchange between her and Elmi, also didn’t make sense. Had something happened after Jack left? Did the one who’d murdered his mother catch up to them?

It only now occurred to Jack that he hadn’t even asked his mother whether she’d prevailed in the fight with fatal wounds or had she only managed to get away before the death blow could be struck. The fact that they’d been able to bury her and mourn her for about two hours, seemed to suggest that there was no one after them.  But then it also was possible that the old man that had been after them had been taking a short rest to recuperate a bit before he continued his pursuit.

The second thing that Jack couldn’t make sense of was the question itself. “What do you mean ‘how did I get here'? I simply walked through the doorway you opened,” Jack said the tone of his voice expressing the confusion he felt.

“That’s impossible,” Came Lyra’s reply. “The doorway I opened doesn’t lead here,” Lyra replied, her eyes fixed on him unwaveringly.

“Maybe it leads to more than one place,” Jack shrugged helplessly unable to explain something he hadn’t even known was odd, to begin with. He knew as much about magical doorways as he did about nuclear reactors, which was a whole lot of nothing. In fact, had she not said anything, Jack wouldn’t have been any the wiser that something odd had happened.

“That’s like telling me the front door to your house also opens into your bedroom on the first floor, it doesn’t happen, Jack,” she said. “One door, one exit, that’s how it works!” Lyra answered.

Jack remained silent. Both because of his own ignorance and the fact that it was clear that his unhelpful replies were only fanning the flames of rage burning in his eyes. She scrutinized him with her intense gaze. It was after a few long seconds of quietly simmering with rage, that she finally looked away. She clearly had finally arrived at the conclusion that he had no information to offer that would offer any illumination as to how it was that he got here. “What happened to you?” Jack asked when he was a bit sure that she wouldn’t fly off the handle at the slightest provocation.

“Apparently, Kiran wasn’t the only one coming after us,” she answered, the effort to calm herself down was visible on her face.

“Who’s Kiran?” Jack inquired.

“The old man that came after us,” Lyra answered.

“How did you know his name?” Jack asked.

“Well, there woman that was on the other side of the doorway I opened. A powerful witch and an even more skilled fighter. She told us his name shortly before she tried to kill us,” she answered. Now that the initial anger and adrenaline surge was tapering off, she seemed drained. “Lucky for me I had Elmi by my side to fight her off with me and to watch my back,” she added her voice immediately becoming saturated with sarcasm. “It’s a good thing that she didn’t turn and run like some pathetic coward,” she went on snidely. “I’m just so glad that she stuck by my side and leave me to be killed,” This time when she paused, it was because she herself had noted that she was becoming angrier.

“How did you make it out?” for the first time Elmi spoke up since crossing over to this realm. Her tone of voice wasn’t in any way guilty or remorseful as Jack would have expected given the accusations leveled against her by Lyra. Instead, there was only an idle curiosity. As if the answer would be an interesting story to tell at some other time.

A look of pure disgust and loathing crossed Lyra’s features as she turned to look at Elmi. Again, Jack was sure that Lyra would attack Elmi, but in the end, she didn’t She turned and walked past Jack and out of the door. She however seemed to stop dead at the doorway. Her eyes seemingly fixed on something. Jack walked up behind her trying to figure out what it was that had stopped her dead in her tracks. Jack’s eyes closed a tortured look crossing his face as he turned to his gaze to the side.

The first thing that Jack noticed was the fact that there were now somewhere deep in the jungle. The second and primary thing that had caused for his turning away, was the three men, each chained to a tree. They each had one or more missing limbs, and another that had been cut off at the joint, either the knee or the elbow. What was even more ghastly, was the fact that the limbs in question, were lying on the ground all around them. Decomposition had erased the evidence of what else they had been subjected to, but everything about the scene before them, relayed irrefutably that the men before them had been tortured before they met their demise.

“Are these your associates?” Jack asked quietly remembering that Lyra had mentioned having others working with her to keep the doorways safe.

Lyra didn’t answer, she didn’t need to. Her silence seemed to all but confirmed it. The rotting corpses were the people Lyra had been talking about. It was a long moment before Lyra could once again summon the strength to walk forward. She came to a stop before the rotting corpses with her back to Jack. Even from where he stood, Jack could feel the pain radiating from Lyra as she looked down at the dead men. Jack wanted to walk forward and wrap his hands around her and offer her unspoken comfort. Even without seeing her face, Jack knew that tears were flowing down her cheeks. She muttered a few words in the arcane language and fire flew from her hand and onto the corpses consuming them.

Jack walked forward and placed a comforting hand on Lyra’s shoulder as he stood behind her. He could feel the heat of the fire as it consumed the corpses a few feet in front of them. He’d barely been in this realm for more than ten minutes and already he was confronting death.

“So, your associates were just as useless on this side as well, huh?”

This time it was Jack that turned to the dark elf in anger. “Hey! What the fuck is your problem?” He snapped angrily.

Elmi’s eyes turned to him, and in them, Jack could quite clearly see that she honestly didn’t care. It wasn’t even that she drew any pleasure from her snide comments. She was simply saying them because she knew they would hurt Lyra. A sadistic and spiteful inclination, Jack could understand, at least she would draw some pleasure from that. Why she would just punish for no other reason than to make someone else miserable, Jack couldn’t wrap his mind around.

“Let’s make one thing clear,” How her breath didn’t come out foggy given how cold her tone of voice was, Jack could only wonder at. “I may be your sword, but I am neither your friend nor hers,” she shot at him. “Before this, your death was nothing personal,” she said shrugging. “Just a means to an end,” She stated calmly in her still glacial. “But now,” somehow, the smile that crossed Elmi’s lips made Jack feel like an ice block was growing in his chest. “If you somehow don’t die within five years and thereby take me with you,” she stated. “Then your death by my hand is all but a certainty,” she informed him.

“We are not a merry band of allies traveling together. We are enemies forced into this situation. I hate the both of you. She hates me and is just using you for whatever her ends are,” Elmi stated pointing to Lyra. “You? Well, you are just a boy who thinks if he shows mercy, people will like him and ‘be grateful and leave us alone,’” She said in a mocking tone mimicking the words Jack had used when trying to get Lyra to let Elmi live. “Two killers who hate each other and a clueless boy,” she sneered.

“I couldn’t care less about her or her pain, I couldn’t care less about you or your pain,” Elmi stated coldly. “I’m going to do my best to keep you alive not only because my life depends on it, but because I plan to be the one to end yours,” Both her tone and the look in her eyes relayed that these weren’t just empty threats on her part. Elmi meant every single word.

“The only reason you are alive is because I saved you,” Jack finally found his voice. “You’d be a pin cushion except with swords if it weren’t for me!” Jack fumed.

“Much as I am loathed to admit it,” Elmi answered. “But she was right, you should have killed me,” she answered coldly. Not only was there no appreciation in her voice, there was actual contempt for him. Almost as if the fact that he had done all he could to save her was only more evidence that he was weak. It now occurred to Jack that the only reason that she had come after them on the other side was because she was sure she could manipulate him into convincing Lyra to let her join them. “You’re weak Jack!” she voiced the very thing he had been thinking. “It’s one thing not to be able to take a life, but to lack the spine to take the life of one that would take yours…  pathetic doesn’t even begin to cover it,” she spat.

How Jack’s jaw didn’t break from how tightly it was clenched, Jack didn’t know. “Look,” He said through gritted teeth, doing all he could to keep calm. “For better or worse, the three of us are stuck together,” he continued. “Rather than make it any more miserable than it has to be, let’s each do our best to make the most of this and make it as easy for each other as possible,” he asked of her.

“No,” came the flat reply, and in spite of himself, Jack was actually surprised by the refusal to abuse by what seemed to him to be a reasonable request. “I’ll consider it a miracle if we make it through a month let alone five years, with your tendency to defend those who are trying to harm you,” Elmi continued. “In the short time I have left, I’ll do say and act as I please,” she stated. “Now unless you wish to send smoke signals for miles around, I suggest you either put out that fire or we get moving,” she said, her eyes on the back Lyra’s head. “I don’t think your friends care all that much anyway,” she said coldly.

Contrary to what Jack had expected, Lyra didn’t react to any of the dark elf’s words. In fact, one wouldn’t have been able to tell whether she’d heard anything or not,” from her flat expressions. She simply remained still and continued to watch as the remains of her former associates burned. It was only when Jack heard the creaking and whining of the roof to the shack before it caved in, that he realized that it too had been burning.  The flaming fist that Lyra had put through the wall when aiming for Elmi’s head, had set the whole thing ablaze.

Long minutes passed as it burned alongside the bodies. Lyra remained silent through it all as she paid her final respects to the ones she’d lost. The sadness faded from all her features until it was only visible in her eyes. She seemed to be silently steeling herself and summoning the strength within her to push forward and keep moving When she finally turned around and looked at Jack, she spoke in a completely calm tone of voice. “We have a three-week trek before us, we’d better get moving,” she said calmly before turning and starting off…

*******



Author's Note

Chapter Nineteen is up on my Patreon (the link is on my profile).

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