There was a sudden motion, and everything was turning around him. In a minute Erec realized that it was he who was spinning around the axis of the spike. Faster and faster Erec whirled until the land around him became a blur. Faster. Faster. It was white and black, swirling lines of haze that encompassed him. There was a kind of lifting that happened as well. But he could not see exactly where he was going.
Erec did not feel dizzy, luckily, as he had no real body. But he could sense that he was moving now, heading into the air. It felt like he was a small helicopter, traveling into uncharted territory. It was not an unpleasant sensation, but definitely different from anything he had ever experienced. All he could do was wait, sure that eventually the spinning would end.
And it did. He began to slow, then came to a full stop lying flat on a grassy field. White fluffy clouds floated overhead, and huge oak and maple trees dotted the nearby hills. Bright sun streamed light across well-tended gardens of flowers and manicured shrubs. Erec sat up and saw a swing set not far away, and a sand pit. Nearby were tennis courts and a swimming pool, and in the distance he could see rows of beautiful mansions. Beyond these and wrapping around the horizon was a majestic shoreline with waves rolling in to a white sand beach.
A few people were within sight, skipping through flowery meadows and strolling through gardens. One lazed on a raft on her back in the pool. Everyone seemed relaxed and happy. Not a bad place, Erec thought. At least the people that had died on Mercy’s Spike had a nice reward.
He would have to ask around to find the Furies—unlike on earth, he had no sense of what was going on here. There was some sort of block, he could tell, keeping everyone’s thoughts guarded. He wandered toward the village and came across a boy about his age.
“Hi.” Erec smiled. “I just got here, and I’m looking for the three Furies. Do you know where they stay?”
The boy nodded. “I haven’t seen you around here before. Good to meet you. I hope you like it—it’s a pretty nice place. Sure, I know where the Furies are. They won’t see you, though. Just put that thought right out of your head. They don’t want anything to do with us. We just stay clear of them.”
“But that’s why I’m here. Can you just tell me where they are?”
The boy looked at him strangely. “You came here just to talk to them? Bad choice. I mean, you’ll be happy here, you won’t regret being with us forever. It’s a great place. But the Furies will destroy you if you bother them. It happens every now and then. One of us will get too close to their cave, and
poof!
They’ll get evaporated. Or if a Fury flies somewhere and a ghost gets in her way, then the ghost is dissolved. Take my word, you don’t want to see them.”
That was not what Erec wanted to hear. No question, he had to talk to them. But he had to be careful. “Thanks for the info. My name is Erec, by the way. If you don’t mind, just point out where their cave is. I’m going to have to figure something out.”
The boy shrugged. “All right, but don’t say I didn’t warn you not to go. I’m Jox.” He held out his hand and shook Erec’s. “It’s not going to look like a cave, though, when you see it. Nothing here is the way it appears. What do you see when you look around now?”
“Gardens, fields, beach out there.” Erec pointed. “Mansions that way. Why?”
“The surroundings look different to everyone who comes here. It’s part of the mind block that this place has. Whatever is the most beautiful setting to you is what you see. People look different to you as well, just appearing how you want them to look. And it changes, too, if you get tired of seeing things a certain way. I used to see a dense jungle all around me, with beautiful, bright animals. Some of
the people looked like talking animals too, which was really fun.
“But I guess I got tired of that, because now everything looks like it’s part of a moving painting. I can stare forever at the trees, just watching the swirl of yellow and green oil pastels blending and reshaping. It’s like being an artist in my mind. A friend of mine sees everything as being much smaller than he is, like he could step on any of us. But to us he looks normal size. I hear that the longer you are here the more unusual things can look to you. I guess you start to let go of the normal, earthly way of looking at things.
“Anyway, the Furies’ cave might look like a beautiful house to you. To me it used to look like a giant stone fortress in a clearing in the woods. Now I see it as a massive scoop of cloud cream with swirling browns and blacks weaving around and around. It’s amazing. But whatever you see it as, it will be big, and it’s over that way.” He pointed to the left of the village near some rounded hills.
“Thanks,” Erec said. “You’ve been really helpful.”
“You’ll have to catch me up on what has been going on in the real world in the last five hundred years. I’m the last one who’s come here, except for you, so I’m dying to know how things have changed.”
“I’ll tell you all about it . . . once I take care of a few things I need to do.”
Erec headed toward the hilly area to the side of the mansions. The Fates had told him that the Furies would talk to him. They respected him—he was the one who had saved them. But if they didn’t recognize him right away, they would dissolve him without paying attention.
Walking here was different from when he was a ghost on earth. It felt just as it had when he was alive, like he was subject to real gravity. Maybe that was because his image of this place was straight out of his own imagination. It wasn’t hard scaling the hills though, and he was not tired at all after climbing up and down four of them.
On the other side was a clearing, and within it was a gorgeous glass castle that spiraled into the heavens. Spires shimmered with rainbow colors from the prism effect of the glass. Hundreds of birds circled the palace, diving in and out of openings in the roof and between flags made of a moving glass that rippled in the wind.
There was no doubt in Erec’s mind that this was where the three Furies were living. He remembered them well—and it was hard to imagine the immense, ferocious-looking creatures living in such a delicate, breakable place. Red-haired Alecto, black-haired Tisiphone, and white-haired Megaera were seven feet tall, mostly because of their incredibly enormous heads which stuck out in front of them, hanging in the air and almost hiding their feather-covered, human-shaped bodies. Huge batlike wings shot behind them, and wild, silken, glowing hair flowed from behind them as well.
But the thing that Erec remembered most was how fierce they had been. The enormous amount of pure energy and hate that radiated from them was overwhelming. It was as if they were far larger than their bodies, larger than the entire world, even. Next to them Erec had felt tiny, like a crumb. Completely insignificant. Later, after he opened the Awen of Harmony from around his neck, the Furies finally had been able to let go of their hatred. After that, they had become so different, soft and understanding.
He wondered what they would be like now that the Awen of Harmony had worn off. At least they had kept their word not to wipe all human beings off of the planet. Erec hoped that was a good sign, and maybe they would decide not to wage war on their sisters, the Fates.
Was there a way to send a message to them that he was coming? Maybe they already knew he was here. He was standing close to their castle, wasn’t he? And he wasn’t disintegrated yet.
Some cats ran around on the ground, and one began to rub against
his leg. He reached for it, and asked the thing, “Do you talk, kitty?”
“Mew.” The kitten looked at him when it made the noise, almost as if it understood.
“Can you give a message to the Furies for me? Tell them Erec Rex has come to visit and would like to speak to them.”
“Mew.”
He put the cat down, and it ran straight into the glass castle. In a minute it ran back out to him again. It took a few steps toward the castle and looked back at Erec over its shoulder.
“All right, I’m coming.” When Erec started to follow it, the cat continued on toward the castle. Huge glass doors swung wide open, and they went inside, boy ghost following cat. The interior of the castle was blindingly brilliant, sparkling like a many-faceted diamond. Above, flocks of birds darted around the glass segments, soaring up through the open ceiling into the blue sky overhead. It was impossible to make out rooms or hallways amid the glittering lights, so Erec followed the cat’s steady pace around sharp corners and past other meandering cats.
Suddenly, in an opening, three beautiful women appeared. Erec was sure who they were, but the Furies looked nothing like they had before. Alecto still had red hair, Tisiphone black, and Megaera white. But they wore long, shimmering dresses and tiaras in their curls, and appeared human now. No, better than human, actually. There was an intensity in their eyes that reminded Erec of the first time he had met them. It was hard to decipher whether they were angry or just merely interested, but Erec felt spellbound just looking at them. Their stares made him dizzy, unstable. Unable to keep standing, he sat on the floor before them.
Alecto smiled. “Look who it is, sisters. The only human that I would bother speaking to. It’s our savior, the little prince. The Erec Rex child. And he’s come all this way to speak to us.”
Megaera put a finger beside her ruby lips. “Looks rather good, doesn’t he? He’d make a lovely specimen to keep in amber for my collection. Well . . . I suppose we are going to spare him, aren’t we? We do owe him, right?”
Tisiphone stared at Erec coldly. “Yes. Enjoy it, human. We’re sparing you, and glad to do it. Why are you here?”
Erec was transfixed. It was hard for him to speak. “Can’t you all read my mind and tell for yourself?” After saying this, he immediately worried that he had offended them.
Tisiphone laughed, thankfully not bothered at all. “Yes, we could. It’s just a little harder to do here in Alsatia. There are some protective properties here that keep your thoughts safe. At least somewhat safe. I can tell that you came here to get something from us, right? A thing that will save your brother, and something else to save yourself? I suppose if I bothered to try I’d be able to read more.” She yawned.
“You’re right. I do need two things from you. One of them is a Master Shem—that is something I need to give to Tarvos so that he will let Trevor, my brother, go free. Also . . . I would like to have my soul back. I mean, now that you three are free . . .” As he asked, he had a sinking feeling that he knew exactly what their answer would be. “I’d really like to come back to life again. I mean, if it’s okay with you.”
The three incredibly beautiful women looked at him with eyes so intense that it seemed they saw right through him. If he were still alive, he was sure he would have forgotten to breathe. Their palace sparkled behind them, creating an effect he would never forget.
Alecto’s long red curls flowed in the air around her as if they had a life of their own. “There is not much that I would deny you, Erec Rex. Understand that my sisters and I will be eternally grateful to you. You freed us from our prison of your own free will. You sacrificed yourself just to help us, getting nothing out of it yourself, and
even losing your life. Not only did you do this, but you also gave us another gift. For no other reason than to help us, because you cared about us, you showed us happiness, peace, and love with your Awen of Harmony. You could have tried to do something different, to try to save yourself, but instead you helped us again.
“And, as disturbing as it is to say this, we learned something from you, a mere human. Moments before you came to us, we were ready to wage full-scale warfare on our sisters the Fates, and also to destroy the human race that has preoccupied them for so long. We were jealous of their attention to you. But your selflessness, and the Awen of Harmony, showed us that there was something that we were forgetting. Love, forgiveness, and peace were a gift to ourselves as well as to the rest of the world.”
Erec reached to his neck to see if the Twrch Trwyth still hung there. Even as a ghost, he found the small glass vial shaped like a boar around his neck. He had acquired it, along with its five tremendously powerful crystal balls, during one of his prior quests. Each of the five different-colored balls imparted a special kind of magical aid that Erec could use if he was in need, but he tried to save them for emergencies. Two of them had been used up, leaving the Awens of Knowledge, Beauty, and Creation. Knowing that the Awen of Knowledge was still there was reassuring. That one, if he cracked it open, should let him know everything about any situation he was in. If worse came to worst he would be able to know exactly what to do.
Next to the Twrch Trwyth, Erec’s Amulet of Virtues still dangled from his neck. He looked at it with curiosity. Still, only six of its twelve segments glowed with color. Shouldn’t it have been seven now? He did follow the instructions of his last quest, didn’t he? “Trade your life for the next five people to be killed by Baskania at noon tomorrow in the Diamond Minds of Argos.” Obviously, there was something else that he was supposed to do.
Alecto continued, “I am agreeable to giving you the Master Shem. That is a small thing for us. But as far as returning your soul to you—you should understand that we need to keep all three thousand here in order to stay out of that terrible prison that you rescued us from. Unfortunately we cannot give it back.”
“Unless . . .” Tisiphone raised a finger. “If you find another person’s soul for us to keep, we would be more than happy to take that one and give you your own back. That would be our pleasure. And I would make sure that you were restored into your old body perfectly. We would even give you an extra long life, lots of riches, and anything else your heart desired.”
That promise sounded wonderful. For a moment Erec got excited—what a perfect solution! The Furies would be happy and free, he would be alive again and restored to normal, and Erec would even have the Furies on his side to help fight against Baskania. The Stain brothers would have nothing on him then. How ironic—Baskania had been trying to use the Furies’ release for his own benefit, and now they would be helping Erec against him.