Back to the Vara

by John Kerry

  You are mine, dark princess, it said in her head.

  Sammy banked hard, turning her rook back towards the column.

  You are mine, she heard again, quieter this time, fading.

  And she was back over friendly territory again. Lights and tents flashing below. War cries, chanting.

  The demon couldn’t have been talking about her. She wasn’t a princess, dark or otherwise. What did it mean? Although perhaps she didn’t want to know. For now she was going to rescue Hami and get the hell out of there.

  Hami! she communicated.

  Sammy! You’re alright? he replied.

  Get to the hole in the wall. I’m on my way back.

  My hands are still cuffed.

  I’ll find you something to break them, just get to the wall.

  Sammy slowed her rook to scan the campsites below.

  She sensed the threat late, but banked hard as an undead lava pterodactyl came barrelling past.

  It hit the ground, tumbled through a tent and a camp fire and sent sparks flying.

  The beast righted itself, shook itself off, and turned towards Sammy exposing the harpoon end protruding from its chest.

  The pterodactyl from the fire temple.

  It launched itself back into the sky and came at her.

  Sammy turned her rook and fled.

  The other rook riders – the professional ones – were fighting the pterodactyls with their hooked blades, swinging them in a hacking motion, landing the hooks then dragging them through their enemies. Sammy needed a weapon too.

  A burst of lightning flashed off to the side catching her attention. She banked towards it and picked up pace.

  The harpooned pterodactyl followed.

  A group of magi were fighting undead crabmen, taking them apart with lightning blasts. One of their group had already been killed. He lay in a pool of blood, arms and legs splayed, eyes staring lifelessly into the sky. His staff was by his side.

  Sammy came in from above.

  She concentrated on the staff and it flew to her hand. She cornered sharply and set a path for the column.

  A rook chased by another pterodactyl came in from the side. Sammy ducked underneath, then banked as her pursuer swooped in from above.

  She chanced a look behind. The pterodactyl was gaining.

  Sammy turned in her seat and lit up the staff orb. This time she’d put him down for good.

  She misfired as another pterodactyl clipped her rook, sending them into a spiral. She fumbled, almost lost the staff, but managed to catch it as they righted themselves.

  She needed space. She forced her rook down towards the ground, out of harm’s way, below the swarm of flying reptiles. The pterodactyl with the harpoon followed.

  This time she’d be quick.

  They cleared the battle, she ignited the staff orb, and turned.

  The pterodactyl opened its jaws, screamed.

  And Sammy let rip.

  The blast hit like a megaton. The creature disintegrated, raining chunks of its barbecued flesh on the tents below.

  Relief and something like elation flooded Sammy. She’d taken on a monster and won. One nil to the Mother Worlder!

  Her victory was short lived. She took a metaphorical step back and gazed upon the scale of the aerial battle playing out above her. The monster she’d defeated was one of several hundred that now circled the column.

  Below her, the grey army’s foot soldiers were closing in on the tower. And huge swathes of campsite were dark.

  Sammy aimed her rook at the citadel and took it up.

  They weaved in and out of the aerial combatants around them. Sometimes ducking, sometimes banking, but always rising.

  At some point in the journey they picked up another pterodactyl on their six. A big one. It followed them from the battle and round the column, in and out of the other fights.

  Sammy needed to gauge where she was in relation to Hami. She struck out from the tower to get a better look, circling higher still. She was high above the camp now. Everything below just black shadow.

  She spotted the hole in the column, and a tiny figure standing at the base. It was still a long way up, but she knew where she was heading. And Hami was waiting for her.

  She barrel-rolled through the centre of a dogfight and powered back towards the column, pterodactyl in tow.

  Forget becoming a magus! If Sammy was going to be stuck in Perseopia, she was becoming a rook rider. She whooped as she ducked below an incoming foe and zigzagged in between others.

  She flew to the side of the column, coming in tight and luring her pursuer behind her. She could sense Hami’s presence rapidly approaching.

  Sammy flung the lightning staff up, guiding it to where she knew Hami would be.

  And there he was, soaring from the column. He seemed almost suspended in mid-leap. Time slowed as Sammy tilted in his direction and dipped under him. He caught the staff in his cuffed hands as Sammy pulled up and he landed on the saddle behind her. Hami bounced and almost went off the back, but he snatched at a leg strap and clung on.

  Sammy cut away from the tower. A lightning burst behind her separated Hami’s hands and a second larger burst accompanied a reptilian scream.

  One down, Hami communicated to her.

  Two, Sammy replied. You’re late to the party.

  Sammy took them into battle as Hami secured himself in the saddle behind her. Lightning blasts screamed into lava pterodactyls left and right, and charred body parts fell from the skies.

  “Take us up!” Hami shouted. “Over there.” He pointed ahead.

  A rook and its rider had become separated from the others and a pterodactyl was closing in.

  Sammy went for it, taking them in on an intercept course. Her rook caught up quickly and Hami vaporised the pursuing pterodactyl.

  The chased rook slowed up and turned, revealing Queen Jorj on its back. She swept round in an arc and fell into formation alongside them.

  “Hami?”

  “Twice I’ve saved you now,” Hami called to her. Then, “Look!”

  Below them, the grey army had reached the base of the column and was passing around it, heading north.

  The Air Chief Marshal looked pointedly at Hami.

  Hami maintained eye contact when he spoke. “I’ll keep my promise.” Then to Sammy: Take us north.

  Which way is north?

  Past the tower.

  Sammy nodded to Queen Jorj, then peeled away setting course for the column. “Let’s go, White Lightning!”

  “White Lightning?” Hami shouted behind her.

  “I just thought of it. There was a guy that sat outside the off-licence by my dad’s house. He drank bottles of the stuff. I figured it was a cool name for the beast master’s ride.”

  “Just concentrate on flying, beast master!”

  Sammy banked hard round the side of the column, thus proving her extreme flying credentials. She actually cut in a little too close and set her heart racing, but she kept her cool. Hopefully Hami hadn’t noticed.

  I know what you’re doing. It was the demon’s voice again.

  Sammy glanced down.

  The dark centre of the undead army had reached the column. Liquid smoke slithered around the base. Black tendrils licked up the sides like shadowy flames. Sammy couldn’t see the creature inside, she was too high up, but it was there, watching. Coming for her.

  Behind them, a tsunami of beating wings crashed around the tower in their wake.

  They had company. A lot of it.

  The demon has sent them after us, Sammy communicated to Hami.

  Hami unstrapped his legs and swung round in the saddle to face backwards. Keep Lightning steady!

  Sammy stole a look backwards.

  The pterodactyls were coming in fast.

  Hami began dropping them in rapid succession. Each blast of his staff connected, and each creature he hit went down. It was like watching Wayne p
lay the Call of Duty Zombie maps but on timelapse. Wayne spent all his summer playing and wasn’t close to being this good. But for all Hami’s skills, the pterodactyls were too many and too fast. They were overtaking, coming in from the sides.

  Sammy ducked, weaved and banked, but it was getting hard to avoid the flying lizards.

  A collision put them into a spin.

  Sammy pulled Lightning out the freefall, but Hami had gone. She reached out mentally and found him struggling against a pterodactyl, both of them falling together.

  Sammy went for them, stooping into a dive to catch up.

  Hami was clinging onto the pterodactyl’s wing as it twisted around on itself, snapping at him.

  As Sammy neared, Hami let go. He dropped backwards and aimed his staff. A powerful blast destroyed the pterodactyl, then he rotated himself as Sammy swooped under and caught him for a second time.

  The other undead pterodactyls didn’t let up. Scaly bodies were piling in from the sides. Hami continued to blow them out of the sky, but he was tiring and they’d lost too much altitude to survive another fall. It couldn’t end like this. They’d been through too much.

  A battle cry from behind scattered the pterodactyls.

  Ten rook riders sailed in with Queen Jorj at the head.

  “We’ll hold them off,” she shouted as she held up her sword. “Get to that portal and shut it down!”

  Sammy took Hami and White Lightning away.

  The rook riders peeled off into the pterodactyls, raking their hooked swords through the leathery flesh of their foes.

  Hami mopped up the occasional stragglers that followed, the few that made it through the Air Chief’s defences, but soon the column and battle faded, and they set a course for the mountains.

  –FORTY-EIGHT–

  THE GOOD? OR THE GREATER GOOD?

  Sammy could feel the weariness spreading through White Lightning. The sensation was slight at first, but as time went on she could feel his wings weighing heavy and it took increasing effort to keep him going.

  There wasn’t much to see below as they flew north. Occasional clusters of light indicating small settlements, but not a lot else. Sammy wondered if any of the people living in those settlements knew why the sky had turned black. Or whether they had any inkling that an army of dark creatures was heading towards their homes to murder their children, take their souls and enslave their bodies.

  Sammy experienced a desperate need to fly down and warn everyone. To tell them to leave their towns before the demon arrived.

  They’re all going to die, aren’t they? she asked Hami. All those people in the villages below us.

  If we can shut down the portal quickly, there’ll be no need for the demon to come this way.

  But we’re not going to be quick enough to save the towns closest to the column. And even if we do shut down the portal, the demon will be stuck here in Perseopia and will continue to kill.

  Hami didn’t reply. That was answer enough.

  Sammy felt the situation spiralling out of her control. She’d been god-like while fighting the pterodactyls. A superhero soaring through the sky. Now she was helpless and all her powers were for nothing to these innocents who were going to die because she’d happened to cross a golden disc two years ago. She couldn’t cope with that. She might’ve unleashed the demon unintentionally, but these people would still die. Manslaughter rather than murder, but death was still death. Last time she’d been here she’d been desperate to be important, to be the hero, but she’d somehow unleased darkness and death on Perseopia, worse than anything they’d ever known.

  The demon said she was his dark princess. It was easy to see why, now that she thought about it. Was that why Hami wanted to send her back to the Mother World? Because she caused nothing but death? What did he know about her that he wasn’t telling the magi?

  Sammy leant forward against White Lightning’s neck. She didn’t want to see any more villages, to count houses, or to guess at death counts. If only she’d stayed in Perseopia the first time she’d arrived, the seal would never have been crossed and this whole mess could’ve been avoided.

  But Hami would’ve still taken her to the fire temple to draw Ramaask out of hiding. And if the outcome had been different and she hadn’t crossed the seal, Ramaask would’ve killed her.

  Hami had created that unwinnable situation. Not her. Yet, she had no ill will towards him. He was moody and controlling, but underneath it all there was a semi-decent man trying to make the realm a better place, however misguided his methods were. And despite everything else, she liked him for it.

  It was a shame things had worked out as they had. It was a shame that Perseopia was not more like Fillory or a post-white-witch Narnia, rather than the dark and polluted place it had become. And the word ‘shame’ probably didn’t do justice to the fact everyone would eventually hallucinate on toxic smog before going insane and asphyxiating. That was unless their bodies weren’t enslaved by the Ahriman demon first.

  Sammy was going to stop thinking about it. There was nothing she could do about anything right now. For the moment, she’d absolve herself from responsibility and relax into the flight.

  Her respite didn’t last long. The next collection of lights they flew over was a large one. A town, most likely. Sammy tried to calculate how many people lived there based on the number of lights she could see. Several hundred lights meant several hundred houses. Three or four people in a house, perhaps. A thousand lives?

  Something had to be done. She couldn’t fly past knowing that all those people below were going to die and she could’ve prevented it.

  Sammy sent White Lightning into a dive.

  What are you doing? Hami sounded panicked.

  Saving these people.

  You can’t!

  Sammy pulled up short of the roofs and hovered in place.

  Sammy, please don’t!

  She’d aimed for the area where the lights were brightest, which turned out to be close to the main square.

  The few townsfolk that had been milling around parted as Lightning descended. Sammy tried to land carefully but the poor animal collapsed when it put pressure on its lame leg. The pain was excruciating and took Sammy’s breath away.

  Lightning slumped and passed out.

  Sammy nearly blacked out too. She broke the link between them and was for a moment woozy. She unfastened her leg straps and half-climbed, half-fell to the ground. When she gathered herself together she called out to the people gathered around them.

  “There’s a demon coming!”

  The townsfolk looked at each other, then back at her.

  “A demon?” one of them asked.

  You foolish girl, Hami communicated. Then he stood up on the back of Lightning and lit up the orb of his staff. “This woman is right!” he shouted. “I am a messenger from the magi and I bring a warning. The Ahriman has been made flesh and walks the realm of Perseopia. It is the cause of our dark skies.”

  There were a few gasps, some panicked murmuring.

  Hami took a deep breath. “And it’s heading this way.”

  Several of the townsfolk cried out. A woman close to Sammy snatched up her son and hugged him to her chest.

  “There is no need to panic if you do as we say,” Hami continued. “You must gather up your children and elderly and head west. Tell everyone. You have half a day’s head start. Leave your possessions, the Ahriman has no need of them. Take only two days’ provisions. Once you’ve exhausted them, you can return. The Ahriman will have passed.”

  There was silence.

  “Go!” Sammy shouted.

  The townsfolk dispersed, dashing in all directions.

  Sammy turned back to Hami and smiled. “You saved their lives.”

  Hami watched a father gather up his three children, put them in a wheelbarrow, and roll them away. “I’ve only postponed their deaths.”

  “But …”

  “How ar
e we getting to the snow base now?”

  “White Lightning …” Sammy looked at the prone beast. Its eyelids flickered.

  “… is not going anywhere.”

  “But if he has a quick rest …”

  “He’s going into shock. Do you honestly think he’s getting back up again?”

  There wasn’t much Sammy could say to that.

  “You’ve saved this town and simultaneously killed everyone else in the realm, and in your precious Mother World. In half a day we’re dead too. We should find some horses and get out of here before the demon arrives.”

  “But we need to get to the portal.”

  Hami turned on her. “Yes we do!” he shouted. “And yet again you didn’t listen to me and have ruined everything.”

  “I didn’t know the magi would see that lightning staff explosion.”

  “But why take that risk? You were blasting stones, for Ahura’s sake! What exactly was the point of it?”

  “I was angry!”

  “And now the realm and the Mother World will die because of it!”

  “Don’t turn this around on me! You’re the one that took me to the Cataclysm! You led me to the Temple of Paths.”

  “I didn’t tell you to cross the seal!”

  “What was I going to do? Remain your captive? Get killed by Ramaask? You lied and manipulated me.”

  “Yet you still came back.”

  She had come back. She’d come back and she’d looked for him when she’d reached Perseopia. Even though he’d treated her badly previously. What did that say about her?

  Hami clenched his fists and the corded muscles in his arms tightened. “I’m going to find us some horses,” he said, and ran off.

  A cold wind blew through the town square. Sammy looked up past the lampposts and burning torches into the black void above. She still couldn’t quite believe she’d caused all this by crossing the seal.

  You are mine, dark princess, the demon had said. It was coming for her. She could feel its legion spreading. Its darkness seeping into the world and her nihilistic urge to embrace it rekindled. The desire to lie down and let the darkness consume her was all-encompassing.

  She wanted to drop to the floor and curl into a foetal position. She was weary and felt unable to fight any longer. The escape from the leviathan, avoiding guards on the islands, the sickness of travelling by greenbuck, imprisonment in the citadel and dogfighting pterodactyls.