by W A Rowland
“Lily, no. Wake up, Lily. We need to go,” he begged.
“Flee!” a shrieking, terrifying bellow came from the changing soul of Anahita.
“Oh shit!” Liam said to himself, and without a second thought, leapt back into the swirling gray gateway to the astral plane.
NARROW ESCAPES
When in doubt, throw everything into the swirling channel of astral energy and hope for the best.
This was quickly becoming Liam’s go-to solution for everything. Friend dying? Throw them into the astral gate. Demon chasing you? Astral gate. Stuck inside the collapsing soul core of a mentally unstable mass murderer. Hello gateway.
As far as he could figure, he was only temporarily aligned with Anahita’s soul core, but somewhere on this plane was his own gateway that led back to his own core. If he could find it and go through, that might reroute his connection, so to speak. He just really hoped he could find his gateway before Anahita’s core fully collapsed, because he really didn’t want to find out what that might do to his own connection if he hadn’t fully reconnected to his body. This whole plane hopping thing was getting really old really fast. Even as useful as it was, he would like to, at least, go a month without having to do it again.
Lily stirred in his arms and he looked down at the girl as she opened her eyes, looking much better already. Must be because they were on the astral plane. It’s probably easier for her to heal here or whatever it is that she needs to do.
“What happened?” she asked groggily.
“You passed out. And the core was collapsing.” Liam made a show of looking around.
Lily’s eyes got wide with realization and she jerked up and out of his arms, landing on her hands and knees. “Mother of Cheeses, what did you do?!” Lily whined. “Why didn’t you just take us back into your core?!” She yelled up at him.
“I did the best I could under the circumstances. Besides, you never showed me how!” he said defensively.
“What do you mean how?! You just do it. It’s not hard!” Lily yelled back at him.
“Maybe not for you! I’m a human. We can’t just poof!” He waved his hands around for a minute and pantomimed an explosion to illustrate his point.
Lily started to chuckle. “I don’t even know what you’re trying to say, but you look hilarious,” she said as she started to laugh.
“One second you’re mad at me and the next you’re laughing? Will you make up your mind?!” he said, frustrated.
“I’m a girl. It’s my prerogative to change my mind on a whim,” she answered daintily.
“A nut is what you are,” he replied grumpily. “Now, how do we find my core gateway and get back through it? I’d really like to not be here when her core finally does decide to shatter.”
“Where are we?” she asked.
“Don’t know. This is where her gateway opened. Figured you might know,” he answered.
“No idea, her guide must have changed the exit point. Most demi guides keep it somewhere close to Joshua’s cabin, but who knows what a Graven might do,” she said.
“So, is there an actual difference between you and a guide for a graven?” Liam asked.
“Yeah, the other guide is part of a graven. How to explain?” Lily mused. “Remember how Joshua said we’d have to grow together? Well, part of that process is our personalities melding. Our souls joining if you will, just not in the same way as all that romance crap from the Hallmark channel. Instead, we can influence each other’s soul. If you became a graven, I’d become one right along with you, not that I’d be happy with it, mind you. But eventually, your influence over me would convert me as well, make sense?” she said ending her explanation.
“As usual, no,” Liam answered.
“Right, ok, well simple answer then. No, there’s no difference in form or function. It just depends on the demi,” she shortened her answer tremendously.
“Depends on the demi, got it. So, how do we get out of here now? Do we just walk around till you recognize something?” he asked.
“What? No! This is the astral plane. We can fly!” she said and lifted off of the ground a few feet.
“Seriously?” he said and, trying to concentrate, he pushed off the ground and found himself also floating. “That’s cool!” he said, finding that flying here was immensely easier than flying in the physical world.
“So we just need to either find Joshua’s cabin or our gate. Either would help.”
“This is your home plane of existence, which way?” he asked.
“That way,” She said, and zipped off towards a set of hills.
* * *
Black came around slowly. Whatever had hit him had been truly massive to knock him out. It felt like he’d been hit by a truck, and judging from the crack in the stone wall behind him, it very well may have been a truck! He sat up and surveyed the room. No truck, not much of anything actually. Where was Anita? And the girl!
He scrambled to his feet, his head throbbing, and slowly hobbled his way back to the center of the room. The stones were still there, but the girl was gone. Damn, she must have gotten away while he was out.
Black scanned the room and spotted two bodies lying on the floor close to the other wall. He limped over and saw Anita and someone else lying in the dirt. She was in her succubus disguise and it looked like she’d collapsed while grabbing the other person’s neck. Was the other a demi? Or just a mundane who had wandered in…
Black grinned. It didn’t matter; he would still get his core one way or another. Just as he thought that, Anita’s body made a crackling noise and her disguise dissolved away. Underneath, he saw her face, her real face, for maybe the first time in decades. She was horribly disfigured, and large scars covered her cheeks and mouth. It was repulsive, and Black never could stand the sight of her like that. But what had just happened?
Then he saw the light. It emanated from her right thigh where her core was embedded. The symbol for Control from the old Norse runes flashed wildly.
“No!” he shouted, as the stone started to shatter.
* * *
“Lily, I’ve been meaning to ask. What happened back in Anahita’s core? You transformed,” Liam said as they flew. They’d been flying towards the mountains for several minutes now, though in the real world, he knew that barely a second had passed, maybe even less. They could talk because air resistance apparently wasn’t a thing in the astral plane.
Actually, it didn’t seem like many of the things that Liam took for granted existed here. Food, water, air, even gravity. The plane had its own set of rules and physics. He’d also seen creatures down below them, but he couldn’t even start to describe the strange forms they took.
Size and shape apparently were also relative here and the only reason he appeared as he did, and Lily as she did, was because his physical mind needed something to latch onto, so in effect, his mind shaped what he was seeing, otherwise he wouldn’t be able to mentally process any part of it.
Lily had said that if his physical body died eventually, and he ended up here, he would probably not look the same, and to her, everything had a different shape and essence, as she explained it. Even the distance they were traveling was somehow connected to his mind’s need for a structure of some kind. It couldn’t comprehend, nor move between two points occupying the same space. Lily had tried to explain it, but his head had just started to hurt when she got into the quasi-physical necessity of space-time paradoxes and concurrencies.
They’d been quiet for a few moments before Liam’s mind, soul, or whatever it was here, got back to why he’d asked his original question about why he saw what he did. And that was to ask Lily what she’d done back in the core.
Lily looked confused for a moment as they glided.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I mean, you turned into a freaking burning Valkyrie of death or something and bitch-slapped Sadism across the room.
“I remember getting really, really angry and kinda blanked after tha
t,” she said quizzically.
“So you don’t remember burning him to a crisp and saying something about ‘I am the sum and the parts!’ and all that,” Liam asked, trying to change his voice for her words.
“Nope, I got nothin. Musta been sleep fighting or something. That break-in wore me out!” she said giggling, like it was nothing in the world for her to pass out and turn into some kind of avenging angel.
“And that’s another thing! How do you even pass out? Aren’t you just an astral being that lives inside my core?” he asked as they passed from fields into low hills.
“Well, yeah, and each time you use an ability, I help channel the astral energy into creating the effect, but for some reason, your enhancing and apparently the core dives as well draw from our personal energy instead of just from the connection,” she said.
“Wait, so what’s the difference?” he asked.
“One is limited by the strength of your astral connection and the other eats part of your soul; well, our souls actually. Do one too much and you could accidentally consume your own soul to power it,” she answered nonchalantly.
“And you’re waiting to tell me this now!” he bellowed.
“Hey, quit yelling! I swear you’re worse than Cindy,” she said sternly. “I only just figured it out recently and we haven’t exactly gotten to sit and chat much lately; actually, flying around with you has been rather nice. We don’t just hang out anymore, Liam,” she quipped.
“We never ‘just hung out’ ever since we met it’s been ‘Liam, do this,’; ‘Liam, don’t get killed by the monsters’; or ‘Liam, here’s the vitally important thing that I didn’t tell you!’” he shouted angrily.
“Well, it’s not my fault that you suck at asking questions,” she said offended. “Listen, just don’t do too much of the enhancing and core diving at once and you should be fine. Most of the damage to our soul seems to be repaired in a couple hours. Also, a willing soul is much easier to get into and doesn’t need nearly as much energy as an unwilling one, like Anahiti,” she finished with a smile. “The only reason today was so rough is because we did so much at once without a rest. Even so, I think we only used about a quarter of your soul’s energy today. That should be back in twelve hours or so.”
Liam couldn’t believe what he was hearing. A quarter of his soul was gone?
He was about to go into a string of expletive laden questions when Lily squealed and dove for the ground. He looked to see her giggling and flying in crazy lines grasping at something. A chorus of giggling laughing voices followed her as she spun and twirled just above the ground.
“Gotcha!” he heard her say and she flew back up to where he was. In her hand was a squirming figure with three overly large eyes, and fur covering its tiny body. It looked bipedal, with two arms and two legs and a single torso, but it also had semi-translucent wings.
It stopped struggling as she opened her hand and seemed to sternly rebuke her in an odd, assonant language that he wasn’t sure had any consonants.
“Well, don’t squirm so much then!” she rebuked back and the little figure huffed, and sat in her hand with arms crossed, three eyes glaring at her. Lily just giggled and started stoking its furry head and back and soon Liam could swear he heard the little thing purring.
“Lily, what is that?” he asked, getting her attention.
“It’s an Éouea,” she said, the word obviously from the same language the small creature had been speaking in before.
“A what?”
“Your mythos would call it a mountain pixie, but they don’t really like that name. Too similar to fairies in their minds,” she explained and the little figure jumped up angrily at hearing it being called a pixie. Some pats and it was soon purring all over again though.
“Why is it here?” he asked confused.
“It lives here, Liam; it is probably wondering why some dumb mortal is here flying through its field asking dumb questions,” she said giving him a patronizing look.
“No, I get why it’s here, but why are you holding it?”
“Because it’s just so cute!” she said with a squeal, and started cooing at the little creature who had flopped onto its back like a two-inch tall puppy looking for belly rubs.
Liam just rolled his eyes and looked forward. He wasn’t sure where they were going, but even he had been getting a strong feeling that it was the right way and since this whole place was apparently his mind’s construct, he figured his gut was probably right.
He was searching the valleys below when they heard a loud cracking sound and a boom from behind them.
“I think her core may have just broken,” Liam said looking back.
“Yeah,” Lily said unconcerned as a large beam of light appeared over the horizon.
They still hadn’t found the gate to his core and he could feel a pull from behind him now, something sucking him in.
“Lily?!” he said, his momentum stopped in its tracks as he tried to keep flying. She turned with a horrified look on her face.
“Liam!” she screamed and raced back towards him, the pixie flittering off as she tossed it in her wild turn.
Liam felt himself starting to move backwards, like a rope was tied around his waist on one end and a rock on the other and was pulling him down through water.
“Liam, the connection to your body through her core is getting stretched and her core is trying to use you as a lifeline. You need to get back into your body now!” she screamed.
“Trying to do that,” Liam grunted, struggling against the immense weight pulling him backwards.
“No, Liam, listen. You need to understand. There and here is the same, I need you to understand that. Your gate is right here!” she screamed as he slowly felt himself floating backwards, despite his struggles.
“Then so is her gate!” he screamed and flailed wildly, losing more ground as the horizon behind him turned crimson.
“Liam, you need to focus! Your gate is here, right here,” she intonated. “Say it!” she yelled.
Liam panicked instead.
“DAMNIT, LIAM, SAY THE FUCKING WORDS!” she screamed. That was the only time Liam could recall Lily ever swearing. Must be important.
“My gate is here,” he said, struggling as the horizon turned black.
“Again! Say the words! You need to believe them!” she yelled.
“My gate is here,” he said, trying to focus on what he thought his gate would look like.
“Again!”
“My gate is here!” he grunted and flew back a few hundred feet. The horizon was now a black abyss, swallowing land and sky alike.
“Believe it, Liam!” Lily enforced.
“My gate is here!” he yelled several times, but nothing happened.
“Lily, it’s not working!”
“Don’t say the words to me, dummy, say them to yourself!” she yelled.
The blackness was incredibly close.
“My gate is here. My gate is here. Mygateisheremygateisheremygateishere,” Liam said the word over and over in his head and out loud. Truly wanting his gateway to be there where he was, but he didn’t believe it.
He was even more panicked now. He could feel the cold seeping up on him. Suddenly, he heard Lily’s voice.
“Liam look! It’s your gate! It’s right there!” she said pointing to his peripheral vision. And as he turned his head, a massive silver gateway appeared and he was sucked through.
“It worked! I did it!” he cheered in his head as he was pulled free of the collapsing version of the astral plane. He felt his body again, his heart beating, and he felt something cold holding his neck. “Ohh yeah, she’s choking me.”
Lily giggled. “No, actually you didn’t. Well, you did, but I had to trick you into doing it,” she said.
“Waitsaywhat?” he vocalized quickly.
“Well, you wanted to believe it, and you tried to believe it. But you didn’t, so I gave you a nudge. I told you it was there, and you believed me, so it was there. Boom!
Psychology 101 with Lily,” she said with a self-satisfied grin.
“Then I could have… I’d be…” Liam felt sick, which was a good sign as it meant he had a body that could actually be sick.
“Body coming up,” Lily said, and Liam saw a blue glow coming from the end of the channel; they were flying down. “Hey, I think you’re unconscious.” she said at the last second before they were flung through.
* * *
Black screamed in rage as part of Anita’s leg exploded outward, shards of stone flying in all directions with blood and gore. Her stone had been under a major artery, so trying to fix the leg was not going to happen. Ohh well, he’d find another wife somewhere down the line. Only that Anita had just been so useful. She was awake for the moment, screaming. Her body was in its final death throes. Too bad he couldn’t feed on her. The dying fear and pain was the best.
Black considered, for half a moment, that maybe he had a problem now, but concluded that at worst it was just a setback. He’d find a fifth stone and get in. It would just take longer. Hell, maybe that man next to Anita had a stone, that’d be nice. Easy. He took a few hobbling steps towards them, paying Anita no mind as she expired, her fingers scraping on the floor for something to hold onto in her last moments. It looked like she’d actually grabbed that man’s hand. How repulsive… Black was still a ways away, when he heard the sound of boots on stone from the entry way. What was it now?
As he turned, he saw a broad man with white hair and a wolfish sneer on his face.
ANCHOR FOR SOULS
Liam was just starting to come around. His vision was blurry and it felt like he’d hit his head when he fell over. There wasn’t a hand on his throat anymore, but he felt something cold gripping his hand. He tried to lift his head, but his body seemed to disagree with that notion and nothing happened. He was slowly gaining some awareness and he heard voices.
“Julian? God, I thought you were dead!” he heard Black’s voice.
The wolf’s low gravelly voice came back in response.