by John Kerry
Two years? Mehrak found himself almost unable to focus. His brain was imploding. If he hadn’t been sitting he might’ve collapsed and fallen into the pit.
He slumped against the wall. It couldn’t be that long. She’d only been gone a moment. He didn’t want to believe it. He wanted to fight it, but when he looked at her, he knew it to be true. She was different. Mature.
His mind churned with the imagined experiences she’d had without him. It made him upset, jealous even. Others had enjoyed her company, spent time with her. She’d have forgotten about him. Moved on.
“What do you need to catch up about?” Hami said. “He’s not done anything since you left.”
The comment cut even though it was true. “Did you bring water?” Mehrak asked, at a loss for anything else to say.
Hami frowned. “Is that really the first thing you want to ask? You aren’t interested in the fact Sammy has returned?”
“I’ve been down here a long time and it’s hot.” He stuffed his hands into the portal pearls around him so Hami wouldn’t see them shaking. “Sammy said she hasn’t seen me for two years. She obviously reused the Midnight Emerald bracelet to come back, and although I’m thrilled to see her,” he made eye contact with her, “I think it was reckless to return. I risked my life to get you home.” He was acting petulantly. He didn’t want Sammy to see him like this, but he’d meant what he said. He tried to relax. “I would like to catch up, though.”
“So it’s agreed,” Hami said. “Sammy’s going back to the Mother World.”
Sammy’s eyes widened in indignity, then when Hami showed no sign of backing down, they moved to Mehrak and became pleading. Mehrak, they said. Let me stay.
He had to look away to muster all his resolve. “I can’t believe I’m siding with Hami,” he said, “but he’s right. You shouldn’t have come back. It’s too dangerous.”
“I thought you’d be pleased to see me,” she said as she marched around the glowing portal pit to the area of shelf that had held the green pearls.
“I am,” Mehrak said. “I don’t want you to leave, but those crabmen tried to kill you.”
“The pearl’s not there,” Sammy said. She turned back to face them and shrugged. “I can’t go back.”
“It popped back onto the shelf after you left,” Mehrak said. “It rolled off onto the floor. You’ll have to search for it.” He got up onto his knees. “I’ll help.”
Sammy crouched and half-heartedly swooshed the pearls side to side with her hand. “This is going to take ages.”
Hami came over to help. “Sweep all the pearls into the pit.”
Multi-coloured bursts flared to the ceiling as the pearls cascaded into the portal. Many landed back on the shelf as they popped back into existence. Others missed their divots and bounced back onto the floor.
Amid a flurry of green pearls re-appearing and rolling off the shelf, one remained as the others fell.
It held, floating in mid-air.
Then it flew to Sammy’s hand.
“This is it,” she said. “Definitely.”
“How did you do that?” Mehrak asked.
Sammy grinned. “I’ve had practice.”
Mehrak experienced another pang of jealousy. What else could she do now that he didn’t know about?
“Let me go back later,” she said to Hami. “Ramaask is dead. The crabmen have gone. There’s no rush. Besides, I want to hang out in Golden Egg Cottage with Mehrak and Louis.”
Hami deflated and his eyes became distant. “I promised that if I lived through the battle I’d return you home.”
“Can’t I at least accompany Mehrak up to the surface to see Louis?”
“We don’t have time to debate this. I wish things were different, but there’s a new threat and it’s very likely worse than Ramaask. You have to go. Now. Don’t make this any harder than it needs to be …” He stopped. “What was that?”
“What was what?”
“Stay here,” he said, pointing his finger at Sammy. He made eye contact as he did so, as if to reinforce the order. Then he dashed back up the corridor.
“Let’s go with him,” Sammy said, walking around the outside of the portal pit.
Mehrak remained on his knees. “He told us to stay.”
“So now you do everything he tells you?”
“It could be dangerous.”
“That tall thin creature is still down here,” Sammy said. “We’ll be safer with Hami than on our own. Come on.” Then she tossed the green pearl into the pit, pulled him by the collar and dragged him into motion.
Mehrak impulsively followed. He hadn’t begun to consider the consequences of what they were doing, but he found himself blindly following her anyway.
He heard the portal pearl pop back into existence behind him, and most probably roll off the shelf and onto the floor.
“Why did you throw the pearl away?”
“I don’t need it. Besides, it’s safe enough where it is.”
She flicked open Lila-Maryam’s locket, lighting up the corridor ahead, and they sprinted from the Temple of Paths and back into conflict.
–TWENTY-TWO–
BIG MISTAKE
The locket retained its continuous beam of light as Sammy staggered over the rubble outside the tunnel, then began blinking as she crossed the barren track and sprinted into the stone columns.
Mehrak lagged behind her, sweating. She recalled that he’d dragged her through the stone columns last time. Now he was struggling to keep up. All the football she’d been playing had given her the physical edge. She’d grown stronger and faster while Mehrak had remained frozen in time.
She slowed so he could catch up.
She’d been self-conscious when she’d stumbled into the portal chamber and he’d looked her over. But the feeling had been fleeting and she’d relaxed back into his company. The intervening years collapsing to a dreamlike interlude as if she’d woken from her distant Sheffield dream back into this more real existence.
A distant moan.
Mehrak gasped. “Is that Leiss?”
The big Marzban guard that had travelled with them in Golden Egg Cottage. Sammy had forgotten all about him. He’d been attacked by the tall creature like Borzin had. But his departure hadn’t been dramatic. He’d just gone. Borzin had been brutally murdered in front of her. She’d lived through the gruesome aftermath. Leiss had been a footnote in comparison. There one moment, gone the next.
Surely he couldn’t have survived.
Sammy slowed. Witnessing the mess that had been made of Borzin had permanently scarred her. A raw wound that had endured. With time, the memory had faded, but a small part of it had never left. Those lidless and unseeing eyes, she could still see them now. And the aroma of cooking meat. She wasn’t sure if she could go through something like that again.
“We’re almost there,” she said, sounding braver than she felt, letting her adrenalin carry her forward. “I can see Hami’s light.”
No sooner had she seen it than they were upon him.
Sammy squinted, flinching in preparation for the horror.
There was none.
She relaxed. The big Marzban was on his back in a pool of Hami’s staff light. His clothes were singed, his face was red and blistered in places, and his pink turban had partially unravelled, but otherwise he wasn’t in such a bad state. Nothing like Borzin had been in.
Hami’s eyes were wild. He rounded on Sammy. “I told you to stay put!”
“It’s fine,” Sammy said, kneeling beside Leiss and attempting to ignore the scary look on Hami’s face. “We can go back later.”
“I’m sorry,” Leiss groaned.
Hami grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back to her feet. “No, it isn’t okay.”
“I’m sorry,” Leiss said again. “I tried not to call out. It made me …”
Hami let go of her, and his face became ashen. “Please tell me you brought the por
tal pearl with you?”
Sammy’s eyes met his. In them she saw true fear. An emotion she’d once thought him incapable of. She shook her head.
Hami opened his mouth wordlessly. Blinked. Then ran.
Without the steady glow of Hami’s staff, they were intermittently plunged into darkness as the light from Sammy’s locket blinked lazily on and off. Each pulse lit up their surroundings before drowning them in nothingness. The shame of what she’d done made her covet the dark each time it returned. Those fleeting moments of ‘in between’ time where she didn’t exist and couldn’t be seen or judged.
Leiss looked to be in some pain. He remained on the floor gripping his left leg. A thin trail of blood led away from him into the darkness.
Leiss followed her gaze. “The creature made me crawl here so you’d hear me call out,” he said as he squinted up into the light.
Sammy used the following dip into darkness to angle her body away. She couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t face what she’d put him through.
She fell under Mehrak’s scrutiny during the next surge of light. He said nothing, but he didn’t have to. He and Leiss had risked their lives to send her home and she’d thrown it back in their faces.
They waited some time for Hami to return.
When he did, the only thing he had to say was, “It’s gone.”
–TWENTY-THREE–
BACK TO THE SURFACE
Sammy trailed Hami and Mehrak as they supported Leiss through the stone columns. The pulses of light from her locket grew further apart as they walked, and soon stopped altogether. She continued to follow from behind, wallowing in the long shadows cast by Hami’s staff light.
She was stuck in Perseopia.
She didn’t want to go home, yet having lost the option forever filled her with dread. She’d never see her mother again. Would she be okay without her? What if the tall figure entered the portal later, once they’d left the fire temple? It could wind up at her home in Sheffield. The realisation set off a mild panic attack and left her feeling hollow. She supported herself against the columns as she staggered between them. The creature would kill her mother and burn her house down. All direct consequences of her actions.
Hami hadn’t spoken to her since announcing that the pearl was missing. His silent disappointment worse than anything he could have said.
She lagged further behind, her will to keep moving diminishing with each step.
Ascending the staircase back to the fire temple was a slog. Hami and Mehrak took turns helping Leiss up the stairs and numerous breaks were taken. And after an eternity of staggered climbing, they reached the top and the low room below the hall.
Leiss slumped up against the wall, then slid down to his bottom.
Mehrak rolled over on the floor and remained where he lay. He groaned as he stretched out. “Ooh, my ribs.” Then, following Sammy’s quizzical expression, added, “Where the crabman hit me. You probably won’t remember.”
Hami moved past them to the area below the entrance to the hall above.
The tile was missing.
In a single motion, he leapt up through the hole and was gone.
A moment went by, then he called down to let them know the hall above was clear. He pulled Sammy up first, then together they helped Mehrak, then Leiss up. Leiss was easier to lift than she thought he’d be. She could only assume Hami was using some kind of magus trick to lift him as she still hadn’t figured out how to move people.
The furniture that had been piled on top of the entrance to the secret room was scattered nearby. Most of it was either smashed, burning or both.
“Where is everyone?” Sammy asked.
Hami pointed. “Over there.”
More dead bodies. The priests they’d been talking to before descending into the mountain had been reduced to charred husks.
Mehrak looked to Sammy, and she nearly lost it. She felt suddenly conspicuous. Like everyone was judging her for this even though it wasn’t her fault. The tall thin figure was always going to come back this way. She hadn’t ordered the priests to man the entrance. She hadn’t caused their deaths.
She looked away and concentrated on not freaking out. She didn’t know them. If she could distance herself from thinking of the blackened shapes as once having been human, she might be able to avoid a breakdown.
“We need to leave,” Hami said. He took his cloak off and put it over Sammy’s shoulders. “Stay hidden and try not to let anyone see you.” He pulled the hood over her head.
“Why?”
“So no one discovers that you’ve stayed. If we can keep you hidden, there may be an opportunity to return you to the Mother World at some point in future.”
“Maybe I don’t want to go back.” The words came out without consideration, and she couldn’t take them back.
Hami’s eyes flashed with anger, but he kept his voice even. “If you hide now, you’ll be able to make that decision later. If my brothers find you, then you’ve lost the option.”
Sammy opened her mouth to say something, but the look Hami gave her ended the conversation. He turned to Mehrak.
“Mehrak? Find Louis and bring him into the atrium. Get him as close as you can to this hall, then back him up to the doors. We don’t want Sammy seen and we need to make it quick.”
“Why quick?” asked Mehrak. “And what right do you have to tell us what to do? You’ve lied and manipulated us. I think you should leave us to make our own way from here.”
Hami bristled. He seemed to be straining to keep his voice measured. “I tried to send Sammy home just now. You agreed it was the right course of action.”
Mehrak frowned and looked to Sammy.
“The magi will be here soon. And they will take her. If they find her. No one knows Sammy is still here except us. I want to keep it that way until we figure out what’s best for her.”
“What’s best for her? As if you’d know anything about that.”
Sammy wasn’t interested in their bickering, but that last part caught her attention. “The only person that’s going to be deciding what’s best for me, is me!”
“Wrong,” Hami said. He was becoming increasingly agitated. “The magi will be making the decision for you if we’re not quick. We’re running out of time. Let’s get out of here and then have the debate.”
Mehrak looked to Sammy.
Sammy shrugged. “Whatever. I’m still getting the deciding vote.”
There was a brief standoff between Mehrak and Hami.
“Fine,” Mehrak said. “I’ll fetch Louis.” And he made for the atrium.
Hami guided Sammy a short way from the hole in the floor to a secluded area by the back wall. He sat her in the shadows behind a row of pews. “Until we –” He stopped himself, made eye contact. “Until you and I, and maybe Mehrak, figure out what’s best, let’s not let anyone know you’re still here,” he said, then got up and walked back over to Leiss.
Sammy crouched down and waited. It wasn’t long until the doors opened, spilling light across the darkened hall. Mehrak was back and arguing with a squeaky-voiced woman. Sammy lifted her aching body enough to peer out from her hiding place. She recognised the woman as Lila-Maryam, the head priestess.
The stout lady bustled in with her breasts gathered up in her arms.
“Not until you explain this to me,” she said.
“I’ve told you, I don’t know anything,” Mehrak replied. “Ask Principal Hootan over there.”
Hami made his way towards them, supporting Leiss under the arm. “Did you bring Louis?” he asked. “We need to get Leiss into bed.”
Lila-Maryam cried out. She ran towards the freshly dead bodies, staggered, then stopped. “No. Please no.”
“The magi will be here soon,” Hami said. “They’ll explain everything.”
Lila-Maryam turned on him, her face burning with rage. “How dare you!”
Sammy ducked back into the shadows as Lila-Maryam
flew at Hami and her strangled crying moved out into the atrium.
The hall darkened and the tirade softened to a murmur as the doors closed.
Sammy’s legs ached from the staircase climb. She was drained both physically and emotionally. The dead priests, the loss of the pearl and her general fatigue caught up with her and weariness took over. She embraced the quiet dark and a respite from conflict and pain. She lay down on the hard marble floor and pulled Hami’s cloak around her. Resting her head in the crook of her elbow, she closed her eyes.
She started awake in the dark. Someone was nudging her to get up.
“It’s me,” Mehrak said. “Come on.” He was trying to coax her to her feet.
Her legs were heavy useless objects vaguely connected to her body. She recalled that too many stairs had been climbed and she groaned as she stood, stretched and arched her back.
“Hurry up. We haven’t got far to go. You can go back to sleep when we’re aboard Eggie.”
Sammy perked up at that. Eggie? Were they boarding Golden Egg Cottage?
Mehrak whisked her along the hall, through the pews, past the burnt and burning furniture, and towards the atrium.
“Keep your head down and stay close.” He stopped her when they reached the doors. Sammy waited behind him while he peered through the gap.
“Go,” he said. And they were moving. He bundled her into the light, bright and dazzling. She raised her hands to block it out as she was moved into position atop a platform that boosted her up and through a hole. She alighted a staircase leading up a narrow tunnel.
“Keep going,” Mehrak called from behind.
Sammy climbed, half-asleep and disorientated. Then she stopped.
Swirling at the end of the tunnel was a collage of multi-coloured shapes.
She was inside Golden Egg Cottage!
The sleep haze vanished as she scampered to the top of the stairs and emerged into the kitchen.
Sammy’s dream fantasy home restored to reality. She closed her eyes and breathed the place in, picked out the faint aroma of mushroom soup, and of smoking mushroom strips in the stove. Memories bubbled up to the surface. Those of cupping steaming tea at the kitchen table. Mehrak making himself busy, whether washing dishes at the sink or stirring a casserole on the hot plate. The intervening years that she’d been away drifted from memory like X-Factor winners after their Christmas number ones left the charts.