Authors: Rain Oxford
It was a short search; everything was exactly how we
left it, down to the size of the vegetables in the garden… but they were
covered in dust. It looked like everything had just stopped, the people had
disappeared, and the only thing that continued was time. Decay.
Several things seemed to have been abruptly
abandoned, such as a half-chopped pile of logs and a clutter of books that had
fallen from a table. I didn’t really notice the books other than to see that
they had not been picked up, so I was turning to leave when Dylan went straight
for them.
“What are you doing?”
He looked up at me as he plopped down in front of
them. “Books can be so dangerous. What better place to start than by digging
through books that were thrown on the floor?”
“How do you know they were thrown?” I asked.
He pointed at the pile. “Look how they are separated.
Someone had either pushed them individually off the table, or scattered them
out while looking through them. Ooh, check this out.” He held open the book for
me to look, but it was written with weird, squiggly shapes.
“Can you read that?” I asked.
He nodded. “Sort of. I know it’s a recipe book for
potions.”
That could definitely be something. “So on a world
where everyone fears magic, one of the villagers uses it?”
“Not just any old villager’s cabin. This is the
alpha’s cabin. I was watching where everyone went.” He searched through other
books and said that they were all magic books; mostly they were about
mind-control and persuasion.
After that, we saw no reason to stick around his
place. A quick search of all of the other cabins took up time we didn’t have.
Every cabin had a few books and Dylan had to check every single book, only to
find they had nothing to do with magic.
We were arguing whether or not to go back into the
jungle when we both felt static in the air. The little girl appeared again,
this time with an ethereal glow. Her image flickered, which added an extra
level of spookiness.
“I tried to warn you,” she said.
“When? What did you warn us of?” Dylan asked.
“He’s coming.”
The whisper in my head was her
voice, but her lips never moved.
“At the springs?” Dylan asked. “That was three years
ago. You knew a demon was coming and you couldn’t have been a little more
specific? You were a ghost then… or you are now. Was that now for you?”
“You are difficult to find. I need your magic,” she
said.
Dylan pulled out his pentagram. “We need help, too.
We’re lost. How do we get out of this place? Where are we? Where is Sammy?” he
asked her.
“You are where you are supposed to be, and so is the
child.” She looked at me. “You are not. You should not be here.”
“I go where Dylan goes. Where is here?” I asked.
“Skrev. It is a world that relies on balance and
harmony; a world that suffers in silence and has been for so long.”
“Why should Mordon not be here?” Dylan asked.
She looked at me. “How long did it take Dylan to heal
this world?” she asked me.
“He didn’t heal it; he said he didn’t finish,” I
answered.
“How long did he spend trying to heal it?” she
reiterated with frustration in her voice.
I shrugged. “About five minutes,” I answered.
She vanished.
“Five minutes?” Dylan asked, looking at me. “You said
a minute. One minute.”
I shook my head. “No, it was five minutes. I said
five minutes. You must have misheard me,” I insisted. I had a good grasp of
time. Dylan and I looked at his pentagram, which he still held. “She didn’t
take it.”
Just as the last word left my mouth, the pentagram
vanished and the world around us changed. When the scene rematerialized, we
were standing in a new place, and we were not alone.
* * *
Sunlight streamed through the patchy ceiling. The floor
we stood on was straw, and it looked like the walls were just as unstable. The
only furniture in this precariously designed structure was a lavish chair, upon
which the only other person in the room sat. The woman sat with her head held
high and the posture of a woman confident in her place. Rojan would have had
something to say about that.
More important were the creatures surrounding her and
us in the room. These things were long and thin and slithered and hissed; we
were surrounded by snakes. I tried to smell their intentions, but I got nothing
again.
“I can’t identify any of the snakes, but the shape of
their heads suggest these are a venomous variety. It’s always good to be wary
of snakes,” Dylan said.
Most were thicker around as my arm. “Do you fear
snakes?” I asked him. I couldn’t imagine my friend’s downfall would be a small,
poisonous reptile.
Dylan nodded. “My mother was one.”
The woman before us was definitely on the attractive
side. She had long, slightly curly brown hair and soft, symmetrical facial
features. While she had nothing particularly unique about her, she came
together very nicely. I could tell exactly how nicely because her clothes were
at a minimum. Her chest was covered with a shaped brown corset that barely
covered her navel. The matching loin cloth was one stiff breeze away from…
“Pay attention,” Dylan said.
I was about to say that I was paying quite a lot of
attention when I realized he was talking about the snakes. All of said snakes
had left the woman’s side and now surrounded us.
Dylan raised an energy shield around us powerful
enough to see, as it normally was anymore. One of the bigger snakes reared up
until its head was even with ours, then it hissed and licked the air with a
forked tongue. One of the smaller snakes tried to strike the shield, receiving
a massive shock. As the brave snake withered in pain, the other snakes
retreated just a little.
“Can you move the shield so we can make it to the
door?” I asked.
“I have no idea. Let’s try. The snakes had better
move, though.” Before he could even try to move the shield, it flickered. “Oh,
god.”
“What’s happening?” I asked.
The shield flickered again and the snake who was
poised in front took the opportunity to strike. I barely saw the creature move,
but Dylan was at least a little prepared. As it struck for his face, it sank
its fangs in Dylan’s arm, which he had put up in time. The snake retreated just
as quickly, in time to avoid the shield flickering back to life. It hissed
again and its fangs dripped with clear liquid.
The woman said something in their language and the
snakes cleared a path, not to her but to the doorway behind her. The shield
collapsed for good this time. “She told them to lock us up,” Dylan said. “Can
you growl at them or something?” he asked, holding his arm at the wound.
I shook my head. “Rojan’s gone, and he’s the one that
growls. I think I might manage to incapacitate them with laughter.”
The snake in front of us, that had struck Dylan,
shifted into a man. He was a fair amount bigger in both height and body mass,
and he appeared to be just as fast as he was in snake form. His voice was deep,
but had a hiss to it as he demanded we move. Of course, I couldn’t understand
his words, but the meaning was evident.
When neither of us moved, the man got behind us and
shoved me towards the door. As we walked slowly, snakes backed out of the way,
but struck at us if we stepped too close. Dylan stumbled and I caught him
before he fell. He started gasping for air.
When we got to the door, Dylan fell against it. I
kneeled in front of him to try and keep the snakes from converging on him. “How
long was I healing the world?” he asked me.
Talk about out of the dark. “What are you on about?
Why are you gasping?”
“Those snakes are venomous. I need to heal or it will
cause cardiac arrest. How long?”
“Seven minutes.”
“You’re sure?”
“Absolutely.” There wasn’t a doubt in my mind. “Why
did your shield flicker?” I asked.
“This world is still damaged. It’s resisting my magic
somehow… I think it’s afraid. It responds like a dog that was abused by its
owner.” As soon as the words were out of his mouth, he exhaled a strange burst
of energy. Then his breathing evened out and he climbed back to his feet. “We
have thirteen minutes.”
“Thirteen minutes to do what?”
“Thirteen minutes to live.” That was all he said
before opening the door and going through it. I glared at the snakes before
following.
This room was smaller than the first and five metal
cages took up the majority of the space. The cages were barely tall enough to
stand up in and were raised just a little off of the ground. They all contained
a small water basin and a cot.
The shifter behind us demanded something and Dylan
entered the first cage we came to, plopping down on the small cot. I entered,
but stood near the door to discourage them from following. The man shut the
door to the cage and I heard a few clicks. They left quickly after that.
Dylan groaned, sweating profusely. “What can I do to
help?” I asked.
“I need to heal, but I don’t know how to heal myself.
I’m going to pass out, don’t panic. I’m trying to call to Earth for help.”
“Don’t you dare die,” I said. He shut his eyes for
just a second before he yelled and clutched his head. “What’s happening?” I
asked. I asked that question way too many times since we arrived on this weird
world.
“Earth’s trying to help me,” he said in obvious pain.
“So is Duran, Vaigda, Malta, and Dios.”
He started to fall off the cot, so I moved to push
him back on, but jerked my hand back when I got an electrical shock. Even
without my dragon senses, I could feel the energy inside and around him going
nuts. Finally, the overload caused him to pass out and other than some
involuntary jerking, he was calm.
I checked him repeatedly for breathing and a pulse.
Fortunately, as soon as he lost consciousness, the energy started to gradually
calm down. After a few minutes, which seemed like hours, the woman entered the
room. She studied us as Dylan started to stir, and her eyes widened in shock.
He sat up and rubbed his eyes.
I grabbed his arm and saw there were no marks in his
skin. “How do you feel?”
“Like the time I was stung by a box jellyfish and the
time I was bitten by the copperhead all rolled into one. Fantastic. But the
venom is out of me. Or at least it’s not working anymore. I just wasn’t
prepared for the magic of five different worlds flooding my system.”
The woman demanded something, but kept her distance
from the cage. “What is she saying?” I asked.
“She is asking how I survived,” he said. Then he
spoke to her in her language. She looked startled at his words and frowned at
me.
“What did you tell her?”
“I told her that my brother, you, is an extremely
powerful dragon who can heal anyone.”
“And why did you tell her that?”
“I’m not sure yet.” I stared at him until he looked
away and shrugged. “Guardian instincts. They are really strong right now. It
was either that, or tell them I am an android… which, now that I think about
it… I should have.”
When the woman started talking again, he listened.
Her voice had lost its edge.
“She wants you to go with her,” he said, lying back
slowly. If he was still this weak, it would be really difficult for us to
escape anytime soon.
“Why would I do that? Is she threatening you?”
“Do you trust me?”
“Of course I trust you.”
“Then you don’t think I’m crazy?” he asked.
I didn’t hesitate. “Of course I trust you,” I
repeated, not answering his second question. He didn’t want to hear the answer.
He pushed me towards the door and I almost missed the
energy flowing into me. He was faking his weakness. “Go with her. I’ll be fine
here.”
There was a small clicking sound before the door
opened. The woman backed up just enough to let me slip by. She closed the cage
and stepped aside, indicating I go first. I really didn’t want this woman at my
back. After demanding I go repeatedly and receiving a blank stare, she gave up
and went first, giving me a nice view for my stubbornness. Apparently I didn’t
get that behavior from Rojan.
I was led through several more doors until we arrived
at a room which smelled strongly of herbs and antiseptic. Beds cluttered the
room in neat rows. Bowls of medicines and trays of surgical supplies were
strewn around carelessly as if they were in the middle of an unpredicted war,
but only one bed was occupied. Lying on it was a young boy who couldn’t have
been older than five.
“How is he?” the woman asked the only other person in
the room. The man was middle aged and looked to be under an unendurable amount
of pressure. I was so distracted by the miserable sight of the child that it
took me a minute to realize I understood what the woman said. I heard it in
their language, but I knew what the words meant.
“Damn you, Dylan. You should have asked me before
sharing your powers!”
Dylan and I used to go into the forests of Shomodii
to test the distance of our telepathic link. Across the lands, there was no
way, but he would definitely hear me from across this building.
“Stop whining.”
The man sighed and wiped his hand down his face. “He
has hours left if he is lucky. Who’s this?” he asked.
“One of the two intruders. When I went to check on
them, the one that was bitten was recovering. He said that this man was a
healer. I see no other explanation for such a recovery.”
The man studied me, but I was paying attention to the
little child. His heartbeat was too slow and he had lost a lot of blood. “Can
you get him to shift? He cannot heal if he doesn’t shift,” the man said to me.
“He knows only some weird foreign tongue,” the woman
interrupted.
“How can he help us if he cannot even understand us?
What is his beast?”