Back to the Vara

by John Kerry

  And like that, Sammy was back in his life. The same excited and enthusiastic girl that he’d said goodbye to moments before, now a woman or near enough, and now only six years younger than he was. Her hair was longer and tied up. Her body curved in places that hadn’t been quite so curvy that morning. He felt his face flush when he realised that he was looking at her. He couldn’t help himself. She was an attractive woman. Soft clear skin, golden hair.

  He turned away. Fatigue was causing this lapse in judgement. He was weak, run down. He was better than to succumb to such base urges.

  “Careful near that edge,” he called out. He sounded soft. “It’s further down than it looks. Stand back.” That was better. Commanding. How he should sound in front of civilians.

  Sammy moved away from him, went back to the cart, grabbed Victa’s lightning staff and started back towards the edge.

  “What do you think you’re doing? That’s a magus’s staff.”

  “Relax. I know how to use it.”

  “I don’t care. You aren’t properly trained.”

  “The tall thin monster in the black cloak is in there with Mehrak. I need to save him.”

  “The one from the forest? It was down there with you?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you still escaped?”

  “Wouldn’t be here if I hadn’t.”

  Hami walked over and took the staff off her. “You still aren’t taking that staff. It’s a liability. I’ll come with you. You’ll be safe with me.” He tossed Victa’s staff to Harz. “Look after this until I get back.”

  Harz nodded and stashed it in his chariot.

  “Narok?” Hami said. “Can you wait here with Victa? The magi may arrive before I return.” They wouldn’t. “Explain what has happened if they do. We’re going to find Mehrak and we’ll be back shortly.”

  Hami held his hand out towards the edge, clenched his fingers, and concentrated. Earth and stone came loose and dropped to the mountaintop below, forming a slope. He sent another five mini avalanches of stone and sand sliding down until the slope looked gradual enough that Sammy could get down without hurting herself. Yet despite his best endeavours, she almost fell the moment she launched herself down the incline, skidding and tripping as she went.

  “Careful!” he called as he plunged down after her.

  Sammy carried on regardless, but seemed to be gripping her waist as she powerwalked across the mountaintop.

  “Are you okay?” Hami asked as he caught up.

  “I must’ve pulled my stitches sliding down the hill.”

  Hami stopped her and removed her hand from her stomach. “You’re bleeding.”

  “I got stabbed by one of the crabman.” She took her hand back and pressed it against her stomach. “It’s fine.”

  “Let me see.”

  Sammy lifted her t-shirt enough to expose her stomach.

  “Hold still.” Hami concentrated on the ragged molecules around the edges of the wound, pulling them together and reforming bonds between one side and the other. Sammy sucked in air through her teeth as he worked, but otherwise made no protest.

  “How’s that?” Hami asked when he’d finished.

  Sammy twisted back and forth at the waist a couple of times. “That’s brilliant, thank you.” She continued walking.

  “It’s not perfect,” Hami said as he walked alongside her, “but you’ll be almost back to normal in a couple of days.”

  “Awesome,” Sammy said, stopping as she reached the temple doors.

  Hami stopped next to her. He held out his arm, concentrating on the large bolts that he could feel were securing the door on the other side. He gripped each one mentally and raised them with a flick of his wrist. He heard them clatter to the floor inside, then locked onto the doors and thrust his hand out, forcing them open.

  Sammy’s eyes met his with sparkling delight, her mouth stretched into a wide grin. “That was cool,” she said.

  How was it that she could be more impressed with him unbarring a door than stitching her flesh back together? Yet despite her disproportionate excitement, a warm contentedness spread in his chest. The realm was in the toilet, but with Sammy beside him, he was … what? Happy? But only for a moment. A tsunami of guilt crushed the flicker of joy under its weight. How could he be so consumed with this girl when the dead were reanimating and Behnam was still imprisoned? And Jamileh. What of her? Was she so easily forgotten? It sickened him, the ease with which he’d filled the hole she’d left with Sammy. It was an affront to her memory and he had no excuse for it. Still, Sammy would be gone soon. He’d make sure of it this time, and when she had, he would be free to save Behnam without distraction.

  “Let’s keep going,” he said as he marched ahead across the threshold.

  The atrium inside the fire temple was deserted.

  He took a moment to take in the vastness of the space, the marble columns, the polished floor mirroring the golden dome above, and something else. Movement in the reflection, circling and birdlike.

  He looked up.

  A lava pterodactyl banked and came at them. Hami dragged Sammy to the side as the winged beast barrelled past and out through the temple doors. It was gone in a streak of crimson, but Hami had seen enough to identify a harpoon shaft protruding from its chest.

  Sammy was shaking as she watched it go. “That was dead the last time I was here,” she said, her voice trembling. “We shot it through the heart.”

  There were many creatures in this area that were meant to be dead.

  Hami walked off ahead, climbing the sloped floor towards the back of the atrium and the hall that would lead them to the Temple of Paths.

  –TWENTY–

  DÉJÀ VU

  Sammy absentmindedly opened and closed the locket at her throat. Would it still work after sitting in her mother’s jewellery box for two years? Presumably it didn’t have an expiry date. She seemed to recall that the head priestess had owned it since childhood so it was unlikely that travelling to and from her world would’ve damaged it. Even still, she couldn’t quite believe it would work again.

  Sammy tucked the locket back inside her t-shirt collar as they neared the rear hall. She didn’t want to lose it. Not yet, anyway. The head priestess could have it back when they’d rescued Mehrak.

  At the doors to the back hall, Hami repeated the manoeuvre he’d used to open the main entrance doors, forcing them open and toppling the furniture that had been piled up behind them.

  The hall was dark, lit faintly by fire light. Men and women were hiding in the shadows. They emerged clutching broken pieces of furniture, pew legs and sharp planks like they intended to defend themselves with them.

  “It’s okay,” Hami said, holding up his staff and lighting the end. “I’m a magus.”

  The scent in the room dragged Sammy back through time to when she’d been there before. The exotic spice and lemon triggering memories, erasing the intervening years, re-inserting her back into that moment. The gilding on the marble columns, the battles in the paintings on the ceiling representing good versus evil, the red and white chequered floor, burning pews. Every individual piece of debris and speck of dust exactly where it had been. A perfect recreation of the stage she’d stepped off two years ago. Nothing had moved forward in the intervening years. She was literally picking up from where she’d left off. Sammy experienced a weird, out of body, kind of déjà vu when she stopped to consider that her other, previous self, had been through this hall moments before her. She paused to let that sink in, and to try to wrap her head around it.

  Two bodies covered by white sheets lay over to her left. Sammy re-experienced the overwhelming dread she’d suffered the first time around, as if her previous self had hung it aside, ready to be picked up and placed back onto her shoulders. The tall thin creature had killed those people and was here, deep underground, waiting.

  One of the female priests stared at her. “How did you get out?” she asked. T
he woman looked vaguely familiar. “Aren’t you supposed to be –” she trailed off and glanced to a pile of furniture over to her right.

  One of the men stepped forward. “Lila-Maryam told us …”

  “We’re going down,” Hami said. “Keep the hole covered after we’ve gone. Don’t let anything out.”

  Then he stopped. He pointed to the bodies under the blankets. “What happened to them?”

  The priest that answered him looked dreadful. His eyes were raw, hair dishevelled and face pale. “There was a tall thin demon,” he said and gulped back a sob.

  “Are they definitely dead?” Hami asked. “You’ve checked?”

  “Look at them,” one of the others said.

  “I apologise if this sounds insensitive,” Hami said, “but you might want to think about disposing of the bodies. Or at least keeping them behind a locked door.” Then softer, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  He waved his hand to the side and the piled up furniture scattered across the polished marble floor. Then he gripped his fist and looked to be concentrating. The red tile that had until that moment been under the furniture wobbled and lifted.

  The entrance to the maze.

  Sammy concentrated on the tile too. Picturing the atoms trembling in their rows. Imagining them getting lighter, shifting. The tile came up. And Hami let go.

  The slab fell, landing on the hole but askew so it didn’t drop in and sit flush.

  “What happened?” Sammy asked. “You let go.”

  “When did you learn to do that?”

  “I’ve been gone two years. I’ve had time to practice.”

  Hami broke eye contact. He got down on his knees and dragged the tile to the side, then he dropped into the hole.

  He’d already gone by the time Sammy had lowered herself into the small room below the hall. She made for the archway and the spiral staircase that led down into the mountain.

  For someone that didn’t care much for Mehrak, Hami was setting quite a pace. Sammy had to jog to keep up with the stretched shadows cast by his staff light. If he went much faster, she’d lose him and end up stumbling down in the dark.

  The stairs were never ending. Sammy had forgotten just how far underground they went. She was tiring, legs becoming wobbly and clumsy. How could anyone have tunnelled so deep through solid stone?

  Hami was waiting for her when she staggered out of the large pillar the staircase was housed in. He acknowledged her arrival, then pressed on through the towering stone columns filling the cavern.

  “I’ve still got the locket,” Sammy said as she jogged after him.

  Hami didn’t look back. “What locket?”

  “The one that shows where you’re going.”

  Hami stopped. “Show me.”

  Sammy slumped up against one of the stone columns to catch her breath. She pulled the locket out from under her collar and held it out to him.

  “Where did you get that?” He brought his face close to inspect it. She could see all the pores in his skin. The prickling of stubble. The strained muscles in his neck.

  “The head priest lady gave it to me last time I was in here,” Sammy said while trying to slide away from him round the column.

  Hami lifted his eyes and they met hers. “The locket of desire,” he said.

  Sammy had nothing to say to that. She stared blankly into his blue eyes.

  “They say it can be used to find anything,” he went on. “It looks into your soul to determine the object of your desire. But what the locket leads you to is often not something you should have. It isn’t especially powerful. You have to be close to the object you want before it will start working. Even still, it’s a dangerous artefact. I’m surprised a priest came to own it. Make sure you give it back when we return to the surface. Or better yet; throw it in the Cataclysm.”

  “Don’t we need it?”

  “I know where I’m going.”

  “You’ve been here before?”

  “The magi have. I’m following directions on the network.”

  Every so often, Hami would stop and pull Sammy close. His strong callused hands brushing her arms, leaving warm, rough patches. The closeness of him numbed the threat of the tall creature. Sammy had shed the fear she’d acquired in the hall above. She was safe with Hami. He’d defeated Ramaask. This lesser monster would pose no threat.

  She reminded herself that she could handle herself, too. Her and Hami together. Side by side, they’d be a force to be reckoned with.

  Sammy sent out her mental feelers. The signal was faint, but she could sense the creature. A bitter and burning anger. It was out there somewhere, hiding in the columns, waiting. Biding its time. But for what?

  They reached the wall that blocked the tunnel to the Temple of Paths without drama. The creature seemed to be keeping its distance. For what reason, Sammy couldn’t determine, but it was probably a sensible move. It was bound to be able to sense how badass she and Hami were.

  Sammy stepped out of the stone columns into the barren track that ran the length of the wall. The tunnel that led to the temple of paths was blocked with rubble.

  Hami surveyed the damage.

  “That tall thin creature did this,” Sammy said.

  “Blocked up the tunnel?”

  “It was aiming for us.”

  “It blocked you in so the only way forward was through the Temple of Paths.”

  “But …” Sammy stopped herself. The creature had been trying to kill her. Yet it had been pretty lucky how they’d escaped. And come to think of it, why was the mound of rubble undisturbed? It appeared that no attempt had been made to shift any of the rock.

  “Find a wide pillar and stand behind it,” Hami said, interrupting her train of thought.

  Sammy ran into the columns, found a large one, and waited in the dark behind it.

  Without Hami beside her, she was on edge. It was too easy to feel safe in his presence. And she hated that. That kind of mentality was holding her back. She should have more confidence in her abilities. She was powerful. She didn’t need Hami babysitting her. She didn’t need anyone. To be fair, the tall thin monster wasn’t just some run-of-the-mill college bully. She wasn’t sure how she’d fare in a one-on-one fight. But the more she thought about it, the more convinced she became that it wasn’t the creature making her tense. She was nervous at the prospect of seeing Mehrak again. And more than that, worried that he’d jumped into the portal already.

  The explosion was incredible. A concussive blast raced through the columns turning Sammy’s stomach upside-down and sucking the breath from her lungs. Rubble bounced along the floor either side of her column and stone dust filled the air.

  When echoes of the blast quietened, she stepped out into the dust cloud and made her way towards the beacon of Hami’s staff light.

  She coughed as she inhaled airborne stone particles. “Did it work?”

  Hami had his mouth and nose in the crook of his elbow. He pointed at the gaping maw of the tunnel with his staff.

  Sammy’s palms were sweaty. This was it. Would Mehrak still be there?

  She ran for the hole, stumbling over the blocks of rubble that got in her way and into the black tunnel on the other side. She opened the locket and the tunnel filled with light. The object of her desire was close. The portal that would return her home? Or something else at the end of the tunnel?

  “Hold up,” Hami called as he negotiated the rubble behind her, but Sammy had already broken into a sprint.

  She flew out of the tunnel and into the long rectangular cavern on the other side. She slowed briefly as she neared the scary angel statues guarding the Temple of Paths, and the broken disc in the entrance. No earthquakes erupted when she approached this time so she carried on through.

  “Mehrak! Hello?” she yelled as she ran.

  Silence. Had he chosen a pearl and taken the plunge? Sammy slowed. Her heart beating hard, her pulse pounding in her ears.
<
br />   Then a faint, “Hello?”, a pause and, “I’m in here!”

  –TWENTY-ONE–

  BACK WITH MEHRAK

  Mehrak assumed his ears had been deceiving him. Sammy had gone home. She couldn’t still be here.

  Then she staggered back into the temple chamber.

  She was frantic a moment, then spotted him on the floor in his pool of portal pearls. She seemed to relax then and slumped against the curved wall of the temple, bracing herself with hands on knees and holding her head low while she caught her breath.

  Mehrak watched her with something akin to mild amusement. He couldn’t quite get his head around seeing her again so soon. She’d dropped through the hole in the floor, swapped her clothes and then re-emerged sometime later from the tunnel that led back to the column maze. He accepted this illogical circumstance in the same way he’d accepted all the other illogical experiences he’d been through over the last several days. An explanation was sure to be forthcoming, but for now he would savour Sammy’s company again for as long as it lasted.

  She straightened up then and Mehrak noticed that it wasn’t just her clothes that had changed. Her hair was longer and tied up. An obvious difference, but there were others. Smaller, subtle things. Her face had shed some of the chubbiness of youth, yet other areas of her body had filled out.

  “You don’t have to stare,” she said.

  Mehrak looked away. “You’ve only just left –”

  “It probably seems like that.” She took a long breath. “I’ll explain once we’ve rescued you.”

  “We’ve?”

  Hami ducked into the low temple chamber behind her. “Mehrak,” he said by way of greeting.

  “Hami,” Mehrak replied. The name tasted bitter in his mouth.

  Silence.

  “So we should probably get going,” Sammy said.

  “No,” Hami said. “You’re going back to the Mother World.”

  “I’ve only just got here. I’ve not seen Mehrak for two years. We need to catch up.”