by F. C. Reed
In a blur of movement, the old lady grabbed Amalia around her wrist. Amalia fell to her knees as a piercing pain pulsated inside her head. The old woman’s grip was firm, and she squeezed harder still. “I am not your enemy,” she said.
The pain eddied over her head and through her ribs, excruciating and overwhelming. Amalia’s lungs tightened as if they refused to work. Her blood boiled and her skin felt like it burned and flaked away despite how perfectly intact it remained.
“And now that we have awakened you, you will come. You must.” Smiling out with her stained and twisted teeth, the old lady looked even older than before. The dark wrinkles in her face dug themselves deeper into her leathery skin. The visible parts of her face seemed to droop as the skin on her cheeks sagged at every passing moment. Even the knobby hand that gripped Amalia’s wrist looked to shrivel as the knuckles poked out over the gray blotchy skin like a row of thorns.
Amalia thought to concentrate on the pain. Pain was a good thing. Pain meant that she was still alive and still conscious, so she should welcome it; tolerate it as much as possible. Soon enough, it subsided into dull aches. She opened her eyes to a pounding head. The room, now empty, swayed and spun. She wanted to sleep and vomit and scream all at once as the odd and unfamiliar sensations threatened to incapacitate her a second time.
The front door exploded open, and Ryna ran in toward Amalia, lowering herself to her knees. “Let me have a look,” she said, holding Amalia’s wrist up to examine the point of contact.
Amalia bit down on her lip. Pain shot through her arm in a wave of heat. “It feels like it’s burning up my arm.” She winced at the red and purple mottled ring around her wrist where the old woman had grabbed her.
“You have been marked,” Ryna said. “The pain and physical effects are temporary, but they put you in proximity to danger.” She pulled Amalia to her feet.
“Marked?” Amalia echoed. “Like, ‘marked for dead’ kind of marked?”
Ryna gathered her wits as she paced. “How in the hells did they find you,” she wondered aloud.
“Hey, uh, marked here?” Amalia insisted. “What does that mean, exactly? And who is ‘they’?” She winced at the stabs of pain in her temples and rubbed at the still stinging purple ring on her wrist.
“A group of resistance that are responsible for—
Ryna halted mid-sentence and cocked her head to one side. Her gaze became distant as if she listened to a faraway noise. And without warning, she grabbed Amalia’s arm.
“We have to go. Now.” She moved with urgency, pulling Amalia behind her.
“What? Why?” Amalia stammered as Ryna dragged her through the house. They rushed through the dining area and darted through the kitchen.
“They’re coming,” Ryna breathed as she pushed through the kitchen’s back door and into the yard.
Amalia wondered who, but found she already knew. She could feel them; sense their growing presence. Like cold spots on a warm surface, she sensed the intruders easily. She counted four of them in her mind’s eye: three small four-legged creatures and a humanoid.
“Infiltrators. They can track the mark on your arm through the aethersphere. It tells them your exact location.”
The high brick wall at the end of the backyard proved to be no obstacle. Amalia watched in amazement as Ryna sprang up, pulling herself to the top of the wall in one swift motion. She perched herself on top and leaned over, extending a hand to Amalia, who stared at it from a few yards away.
“Come on, Amalia,” she yelled.
Amalia hesitated, flinching at the banging and crashing that echoed through the house’s interior. Her muscles refused her, and she stood still, frozen and stunned in the foreign reality.
The back door burst off its hinges to reveal a bulky figure emerge from the kitchen. His scale-like black armor shone glossy in the midday sun. The helmet, smooth as a marble, covered his entire head. A thick coiling white mist escape from somewhere near his face, like the fog of breath escaping one’s mouth on a chilly winter morning.
From behind him emerged three dog-like creatures, each with a row of sharp ridges that ran along their spines, and eyes which glowed a fierce red. They bared rows of white, dripping teeth as they growled and snapped and paced excitedly about the mysterious figure’s feet. Two of the dog beasts crept out to the sides of the yard, distorting the immediate vicinity by bending the light around their bodies, while the third paced in a circle where it was.
Although the figure said nothing and made no discernible motions, the creature that was still visible burst into a sprint as if commanded to do so.
“Jump!” Ryna called again.
The dog demons zeroed in and focused on Amalia. She jumped, her fingers barely touching Ryna’s. Her feet connected with the grass once more, sending a wave of panic through her. She glanced over her shoulder to see one of the dog demons leap at her, its jaws open wide behind an unearthly, guttural growl. Bracing herself, she covered her head and turned away, waiting for the impact and the long dripping teeth to shred her neck and face.
An instant later, the dog-demon yelped out in pain. Ryna tumbled across the grass, a hand around its throat, and another grasping the muzzle. After a brief struggle, she snapped the creature’s sinewy black body across the middle with a twist and it went limp in her hands, soon after crumbling and dissipating in a puff of black smoky dust.
The mysterious figure remained at the rear of the house.
Ryna stood as the second creature pounced at her from the left, aiming for her face. She fell back onto the grass, struggling with the dripping jaws of the snapping creature as she gripped it.
In a burst of adrenaline-fueled courage, misplaced anger, and fear, Amalia ran over and kicked the dog demon in the side, which only seemed to annoy it. It squirmed and snapped, but Ryna held onto it.
A series of growls between running footfalls startled Amalia into a turn. As she did so, a sharp crack like the sound a wooden bat makes against a baseball echoed into the night. The dog demon spun away from them, its broken body quickly dissipating into black, ashen smoke.
Zerosa Valinne stood in front of her, chest rising and falling with labored breaths. She held a silver rod in her hand that crackled with an electric charge.
“Zerosa?” Amalia whispered, more to herself than the girl who had saved her.
“Run,” Zerosa called to her as she flicked her gaze between Amalia and the black-clad man, who started toward them with a lumbering gait. “I will stall him,” she shouted, thrusting her hand in her shirt pocket.
She pulled out a small round blue disk and hurled it at the black-clad man. He swung a massive arm in front of his face where the blue disk stuck to his forearm with a snap. Without missing a step, the figure thrust his arm away from himself, followed by a click and a loud explosion.
In place of his arm remained only shredded bits of flesh and bone up to the shoulder, with remnants of armor and perhaps bone shrapnel embedded into the side of his now scorched helmet and torso. The mangled stump seeped coils of black smoke. And he didn’t miss a single step.
Ryna pulled Amalia to her feet. “Come on, kiddo. It’s time to go,” she said. She pressed her back against the wall and motioned for Amalia to step into her hands.
Amalia shot up to the top of the wall, followed by Ryna, who jumped and pulled herself up. As they descended the other side into the ravine behind the house, another explosion, a bigger explosion, shook the surroundings.
“Keep up,” Ryna warned. “We have to be away from here quickly.”
A bewildered Amalia did all she could to keep up with Ryna, whose strides were long and fast. They approached the tree line and disappeared inside, continuing through the heavy brush for some time before stopping in a small clearing.
“What’s going on?” Amalia breathed. Her lungs burned, and her legs ached. She doubled over and grabbed at her cramping stomach.
“No time to explain. Do you have your keystone with you?”
&n
bsp; Amalia fumbled for the necklace in her shirt. “I thought I—
“Okay. Use it to shift planes to Therios Kaval. It doesn’t matter where. I will find you.”
“I don’t have it!” Amalia cried in frustration. “And if I did, I wouldn’t know how to use it.” She paused, grabbing her chest and folding herself over. “What is this terrible feeling?”
“Amalia, look at me,” Ryna said. “It’s fear. You’re not accustomed to it, but the mark must have disrupted your sensorium.” Ryna watched Amalia’s eyes flash around. “I will open a portal with my keystone. The realmspace between planes is weak here. Whatever happens–look at me! Whatever happens, you go through it. Got that?”
Amalia nodded her head. Around her, the world fell away. Colors melted from the trees and grass. The sounds of strange beings billowed and ca-cawed and buzzed and hissed, all unfamiliar to her senses. The pain, like hundreds of razor blades being dragged along her veins, made her double over again and grab at her wrist. She looked at her arm to see that the mottled reddish blue curse had crept up past her elbow and made its way to her shoulder. Her head swam and she could no longer stand the movement.
Ryna pulled at the skin on her wrist, which peeled away like a rubber glove. Set deep into the back of her hand was a dull green gem, about the size of a quarter. A silver metal band surrounded the gem and snaked down and around her wrist. She held her hand in front of her and concentrated–hard.
The gem came alight, slowly at first, but intensified the more she worked. Soon her face contorted, and her muscles spasmed. Ryna fought the pain and the intensity of the power that coursed through her. A few more seconds and she would have the portal open. In the periphery of her mind, she knew they were coming. She clenched her teeth and gripped at her own sanity to breach the realmspace between planes.
To stand as a conduit of power between planes was a near impossible feat. Ryna had done it only one other time. She lost someone very important that day, but it was worth the cost. That loss prompted her to never again attempt what she attempted now. But they had come too far and she would not lose Amalia to a similar fate.
A final burst of power coursed through her and she let out a muffled, gritted sound that turned into a pained yell, tearing its way free from her throat. The portal blossomed into a flickering blue circle, just wide enough to pass through. She strained her conscious mind to maintain the portal long enough for Amalia to stumble through it.
At the edge of the clearing, a set of red eyes peeked through the cover of bushes. A growl, followed by a long echoing and howling snarl - a signal to the others - emanated from the creature in the brush.
Ryna strained under the influence of being a conduit for such an immense concentration of power. She could not step away without having the portal to close, but her priority was to get Amalia to safety, even if it meant her own sacrifice.
Amalia pulled herself through the cosmic doorway and the portal winked shut as soon as she was clear.
The small wooded clearing soon after became much more crowded with more infiltrators and their dog demons. One infiltrator stepped into the clearing and approached the huffing, winded Ryna. It stood over her; the breath escaping the black mask-like helmet in puffs of white. For a long moment, it watched Ryna as she watched it. Were she strong enough, Ryna would have leveled herself to the infiltration group, but exhaustion pinned her in her kneeling position.
The figure stepped back as soon as Ryna pushed herself to her feet. She pulled in a deep, renewing breath, if only to give the appearance that it renewed her.
“Now what,” she growled as a challenge more than a question.
There were five infiltrators and just as many of the razor spined dogs, but none of them moved against her. Instead, they turned and dispersed after a moment as she suspected they would.
Now she moved to ensure Amalia made it to the intended destination, right after she regained the pieces of herself used in ripping space-time asunder to ensure the safety of her future.
Chapter Sixteen
Amalia’s arms and legs felt stiff and useless and her vision was shrouded in hazy shadow despite the tiniest of sensations that her eyes were open.
“Hi!” she heard an unfamiliar male voice say. Her shoulder blades ached as they dug into the hard smooth surface on which she was lying. An arched back?
“Hello?” the voice sang. What she imagined being a finger tapped her on the forehead. “You think she’s dead?” the unfamiliar voice asked after a moment. “Those open eyes, not to mention the weird catatonic stiffness, give me the creeps.”
“Of course she’s not dead,” came a response. It sounded like the first, but more even toned and less playful. Amalia followed the conversation and her anxiety rose even further as she thought the man must be crazy to be talking to himself. She wanted to signal him, but her arms and legs still proved useless.
“She just passed through a trans-dimensional sourceway created, incredibly I might add, by someone else. Passing through one of those would have you sprawled over a table in various states of unconsciousness too.” The voice paused. “Although the odd angles of her limbs and the catatonic stupor are, well… unexpected.”
“Hmm, true,” said the first. “I wish I were here at the time you pulled her through, Kharius. I’ve never seen a trans-dimensional sourceway created by a keystone. Theoretically, she should be primordial goo, if I am to believe the astral physics swimming around in my head.”
“She is an Itaran descendant of the Red Lion himself, or so we are led to believe,” said the second. “Would you expect something such as having a sourceway separate your atomic and subatomic bits, rip them apart, and reconstruct them to their original configuration in a wholly different plane of existence to negatively affect a pure-blooded Itaran?”
“Like, you mean, the Lioness of the Red? The legendary healer of the rifts, who only pops up every couple of centuries. That Red Lion?” The first gasped. “Wait. Is that a bad thing, or not? I forget.”
A set of sliding doors hissed open into the room. “Where is she?” That voice was ever familiar. Ryna, or General Strann in this existence, had come. Amalia’s relief, although unseen, flooded her for a moment.
“General,” the pair of voices rang out in unison.
Amalia felt hands on her forehead. They stroked her cheek and her brow.
“That bioneurotic tracker needs to come away as soon as you can make it happen,” Ryna said.
“Already on it,” said the first. “And by the way, how did you make a trans-dimensional sourceway? Let alone one big enough for her to get through. There really is only one explanation. But better yet, how did you know where the—
“Janil, just get on with it,” Ryna said in a stern voice. “And I want to know how this could have happened.”
“Of course,” he said, the thoughts of possibilities for a sourceway dancing just beyond his vision. “Looks like she’s got a spot of blue on the back of her neck. Is that part of the mark’s reach, I wonder?”
“It might be,” Ryna said, not glancing up. “But I’m more concerned about the angle of her arm right now. I trust it won’t stay in that position for much longer.” It wasn’t a question.
Amalia felt a sharp prick in her shoulder. Soon after, her body eased its clench and her muscles relaxed under a wave of soothing heat. Her stomach also churned, and her heart sped up. She shot straight up on the table and gasped in a heap of air, clutching her chest with both hands. Feeling like her insides were being twisted like a sponge, she turned her head. One occupant in the room was unfortunate enough to be standing close by. Her eyes bulged as she retched over the side.
“Score!” shouted the man who stood next to the lab table where she sat.
Kharius sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Don’t you have something else to do?”
“No way,” Janil replied. “I get to tell everyone how the Red Lioness yacked all over me.” He seemed genuinely pleased. “Imagine the envy!”
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br /> “And imagine the stench if you don’t go clean up,” Kharius said. He helped steady Amalia as she sat with a hand to her forehead.
“I’m… I’m sorry,” she said. Her blurred vision kept her stomach on edge. Painful drums seemed to beat in her head and the fluorescent light buzzed softly, ensuring the monotonous intensity terrorized her sensitive senses. And although she wasn’t quite sure, she thought the vomit looked a bit on the blue side.
Janil trotted off with an enormous smile on his face. “Wonder if I can bottle some of this. Sell it as a novelty item.”
Kharius handed her a glass of green iridescent liquid. “Sometimes I swear he fell out of a basket of idiot,” he said, moreso to himself.
“You okay? How do you feel?” Ryna touched her on her back from behind.
“Like a truckload of stray cats took a crap in my mouth,” she replied. She used the sweet, minty liquid to rinse away the sickening bile.
Kharius took that glass and handed her another. “Drink,” he said.
Amalia glanced at Ryna, who nodded, then she gulped down the contents in three swallows. Water, from what she could tell. “Where am I?” she asked.
Kharius glanced at Ryna, who gave a slight nod in return. He raised his eyebrows at her response, expecting perhaps to receive another. When none came, he continued by saying “You’re in—
“Paradise!” yelled Janil from a faraway room.
Kharius sighed and rolled his eyes. “You’re in Meginstrum Bay, aethermechanarium research station alpha.”
“I’m in the who-what?” she wanted to say, only she wasn’t sure she hadn’t. She tried to move again, but thought better of it as her brain felt like it mashed along the insides of her skull. Instead, she took in the sights of the sizeable room as her vision came into focus.
It looked to be a mechanic’s garage, but most of the tools, gadgets, and machines themselves reminded her of nothing she had ever seen in a mechanic’s garage before. Heavy machinery, hydraulic lifts, and bits of shaped metal lay strewn about amid engine blocks, perforated pipes, and oddly shaped tools.