by Peter Glenn
I landed on the ground with a thud, the force of the fall knocking most of the water out of my chest.
Sweet, fresh air rushed into my lungs as I inhaled as hard as I could. My lungs protested as the last of the water gushed out of my mouth in a massive coughing fit that racked my poor body. Slowly, I felt my vision start to return, and I could feel the warm, solid earth beneath me once more, as the burning sensation in my body left, and normal functions returned.
It was the best feeling in the world. I could understand now why sailors kissed the dirt after a long voyage. Feeling the solid earth was welcoming and comforting after the moments of weightless darkness.
“I was beginning to worry you’d gotten lost in there,” LaLuna’s voice called out in her lilting tones. It was the sweetest sound in the world right then.
“Ugh.” I floundered, trying to figure out how to get my arms and legs under me so I could get back up to my feet. I could only imagine how I looked to her right then, soaked through and limbs akimbo. Eventually, I managed the feat.
Pain came again, then, in the form of what felt like a dagger slicing deep into my skull. The headache pounded away, but I barely minded. You don’t get headaches when you’re dead.
“My head.” I tossed it about back and forth for a second, attempting to ward off the headache and failing.
There wasn’t much else to do, so I shoved myself upright, which made me cough another half dozen times as I forced some residual water out of my lungs. Eventually, it subsided, and I forced myself fully onto my feet.
For the second time in as many days, I’d been submerged in water now. I hadn’t liked either one. Though this one was decidedly worse.
“Are you all right?” LaLuna asked. She was holding tight onto my shoulder.
I squeezed the hand that was holding me. It felt almost hot compared to my clammy skin.
“What the hell happened back there?” I asked. I shook both legs a little to breathe some warmth into my skin and start the drying process for my jeans.
“To be honest, I’m not quite sure.” LaLuna was biting her lip again. “I’ve never seen that happen before when others have entered the fae realm.” She grimaced. “Someone must really not want you here.”
“Heh,” I blurted out, almost coughing again. “Well, it’s going to take more than that to stop me. I’m determined.”
LaLuna opened her mouth and closed it again. She hesitated for a moment, then finally let go of my arm and gave it a pat. “Just... be careful, Damian. You don’t know the fae realm like I do.” LaLuna’s eyes darted toward a nearby hedge. “Besides, we have company.”
I spied a glance in that direction and could barely discern the hazy outline of a couple of tall, lumbering shapes shambling toward our location. I couldn’t make anything else out about them, but I had a feeling they wouldn’t be friendly.
“Well, let’s get out of here, then,” I whispered.
LaLuna held out her hand to me. “This way, quickly.”
I didn’t need more urging. I gave her my hand, and she pulled me onward. We ran off in the opposite direction toward an old, withered oak tree that was close by. Once we’d passed it, she had me duck behind the massive trunk and motioned for me to stay silent.
Curiosity overwhelmed me. I glanced back toward where the portal lay in spite of the warning, slinking around the edge of the trunk to where my head was barely visible. I could see the portal now in all its glory. And from the fae side, it was glorious to look at.
The portal rose upward from a wide, stone circle cut into the ground, easily twice the size of the one on the human side. It looked to be all one piece, like some stonemason had carved it out of the top of the hill it stood on instead of piecing it together. Greenish-blue water peeked out from the edge of the circle, faintly glowing in the sunlight. I could make out a few brightly glowing sparks along the surface, though from this angle, I couldn’t really see anything else.
Lazy, swirling tendrils of green mist rose from the waters, spiraling upward several feet in the air towards a small, glowing orb of gold that hung suspended above the structure. The light from the orb seemed to pulse with the ebbs and flows of the verdant mist.
There was no hint of the menace that had tried to kill me lurking underneath the surface, nor any animosity at all emanating from that spot.
Entranced, it took great effort to pull my gaze away from the portal and toward the new threat crashing through the hedges. The lumbering shapes materialized a moment later, shoving away the bushes with their giant, gnarled hands and stomping them underfoot. It looked to be a pair of giant trolls. Or at least, what I assumed were trolls. They had rough, green skin and large, round eyes. The one on the left carried a knobby club that looked more like an oversized tree branch than a weapon in its overly long arms.
“Who are they?” I asked in a hushed tone.
“Guards of the court, I presume,” LaLuna whispered, shooing me and trying to push my head back into cover. “Come to see about the disturbance at the portal, no doubt.”
“Friends of yours, then?”
She shook her head violently and finally managed to push me fully out of sight, ducking deftly behind the oak in the same motion.
“No. Definitely not.” Her face had a worried look to it. “Something is not right about all of this. My use of the portal would have been sensed, but why send bruiser trolls to greet me?”
“Bruiser trolls?” I scrunched my nose.
“They’re like the police force of the fae realm. Sent to capture... wanted criminals and elements of the underworld.”
“Criminals?” I didn’t like that implication. My brain, still sluggish from almost drowning, raced to keep up with the new information as another thought came to me. “Did something else happen that I don’t know about? Besides the whole Grace thing?”
LaLuna let out a slow breath and put a finger to her lips. “I do not know. But this is not good. We must seek the Seelie Court for answers. They may know.”
“Well, we were headed there anyway, right?” I shrugged. “So, no biggie.”
“I do not think you understand, Damian,” LaLuna insisted. “I had intended for us to be escorted there. It’s why I used the portal to alert them to my presence. But seeing the bruiser trolls tells me we may not be as welcome as I would have hoped.”
I peeked out around the tree trunk again for half a second. The trolls were pacing around the portal. The unarmed one was scratching its head, and they were mumbling something to each other, but I couldn’t make it out. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure they were speaking a human language.
At the very least, it didn’t look like they’d noticed us. Yet.
“So what do you want to do about it?” I asked, turning my attention back to LaLuna. “You’re the expert on the fae realm.”
LaLuna bit her lip again. She did that a lot. I thought about trying to break her of the habit at some point, but truth be told, I found it kind of cute. “We will have to move quietly and quickly, I suppose. Preferably before the trolls return empty handed.” She paused for a moment, and her mouth hung open, then her resolve strengthened, and she nodded. “Fyrel will know what to do.”
“Fyrel?”
“One of the elders on the council.” She glanced at the trolls and then back at me. She held out her hand again. “Come, Damian. Let us go.”
I nodded. “By all means, lead the way.”
We walked silently for several minutes, LaLuna holding onto me and forcing me onward at first, until we were far away from the bruiser trolls. Thankfully, they didn’t give chase, and we were able to escape without a conflict. I glanced down at Grax’thor and gave her an appreciative pat. If those trolls did come running, at least I wouldn’t be helpless with her by my side.
She might hate my guts, but there was no doubting she was a good luck charm. Who knew? Maybe she was why they hadn’t noticed us.
LaLuna glanced behind us again and let out another sigh. “Thank the Fates we didn�
��t have to face them,” she said. “I would have hated to spill their blood.”
Well at least she was confident about our chances. I was just thankful I hadn’t had to try pitting magic steel against a tree rushing toward my face.
“Yeah, me too.” I relaxed my grip on her hand. It still felt as warm and inviting as ever, but my hand was also starting to sweat, so it was also slipping of its own accord. “So, where to in this jungle?”
And it was something of a jungle, too. There was vegetation everywhere and we were surrounded by tall trees that threatened to block out the sunlight. It felt a bit like trekking through the rainforest in Brazil. Something I hadn’t much liked the first time I’d tried it.
Of course, that had been almost a hundred years ago, but let’s just say there was a witch doctor or two that would probably still have heard the tales of that vacation and pale at the sight of me.
This... this was very reminiscent of that. I felt distinctly unwanted by the very earth and plants around me. As if they all had an opinion, and it was that I wasn’t welcome.
Feeling more than a little spooked, I turned my attention back to LaLuna. She was quite literally my light in the darkness right now.
LaLuna crouched down low and placed her hand gingerly on the ground, her fingers swirling in the dirt. Her eyes were staring thoughtfully off into the distance. She stayed like that for a solid minute, then she finally rose.
“West,” she said at last, pointing off in that direction. “We will find a small settlement there, as well as one of the many entrances to the Seelie Court.”
I had no idea how she’d made that determination. One tree looked like another to me out here. But I trusted her. She was the fae expert.
“West it is, then,” I said with a smile. We took off in that direction.
A few minutes later, the uneasiness in my gut strengthened, although the forest around me seemed to brighten a little and felt more at ease with me, like we’d come to some sort of truce. I stay out of it, and it leaves me alone.
But I couldn’t shake the distinct impression that I was being watched. I could feel some fiend’s eyes boring into me from afar, though I still saw nothing out of the ordinary.
Just then, I heard a weird noise off to the left that made my skin crawl. It sounded like a mix between a strangled cry for help and someone singing in a soft voice.
“Did... did you hear that?” I asked LaLuna.
She spun around to face me, a puzzled look in her eyes and her head cocked to the side. “Hear what?”
I shrugged. “Nothing?” She shook her head. “Maybe it was just me, then.”
We kept going. After another few yards, the unearthly noise came again, even louder this time. It sounded like it was maybe twenty feet off into the brush, just beyond my field of vision. It was more intense this time.
“Are you sure you can’t hear that? It’s right over there.” I pointed in the cry’s direction.
LaLuna sighed. “There’s nothing there, Damian. Just ignore it and keep going.”
“I don’t know. It sounded pretty real to me.”
LaLuna stopped and put her hands on her hips. “You’re in the fae realm, remember? It’s not like the human world. Things are different here. But there’s nothing there, I would have sensed it.”
She did have a point. Still, I couldn’t shake that niggling feeling in the back of my mind that something was off. Something dire.
“If you say so...” my voice trailed off and LaLuna nodded firmly. I still wasn’t completely convinced, but I kept going anyway.
We made it maybe another dozen steps or so before the strangled cry solidified into a woman’s voice.
“Help!” the voice called out from within the woods. It sounded scared and distinctly female and was coming from the same direction as before.
My pulse quickened, and my hand went to my hilt. Someone was in danger.
“Quick! Someone needs our help!” I cried, unsheathing Grax’thor. “Let’s go!” I turned and darted toward the woman’s voice.
“No, Damian!” LaLuna shouted. She tried to grab at me, but her fingers missed by mere inches. “Don’t go after it!”
But it was too late. I was already running headlong into the woods after the mystery voice. I wasn’t about to turn down a cry for help, even in a strange, forbidding place like this. Maybe it was Elden’s girl. I had to check. For him, if not for me.
I sprinted through the trees, my heart pounding in my chest, and came upon a very unusual sight. A petite girl hung in the air in front of me, held in place by massive branches that had wound themselves tightly around her limbs. It did look vaguely like Elden’s girl, but I couldn’t be certain.
Not that it mattered. A stranger in need deserved my assistance either way.
“Help!” she cried again, the last part of the word getting cut off as one limb of the tree wrapped around her throat, constricting her.
“I’ve got you!” I told her. “Hang on!”
I raised Grax’thor and sliced hard into the nearest branch, bringing my blade down against the unforgiving bark.
Believe it or not, it’s not easy to cut through wood with a sword. There was a reason axes were invented, after all, and this was it. But I didn’t have an axe, so I made do.
When my blade slammed into the bark, I heard the tree howl and squeal, and a thick, greenish blood spouted from the point of impact, oozing slowly out over the branch. I hacked again, and the tree answered with another howl, recoiling from my blow even though it was only a surface wound.
I swung again and again in massive arcs, cutting deep into the tree and sending the thick, greenish blood flowing everywhere. Then, finally, the tree gave way, and its limbs retracted, freeing the girl and dropping her to the ground.
I rushed over to her. I could see her more clearly now. She had brown hair and eyes and was wearing some sort of white clothing that looked kind of like a nightgown. She was beautiful, in her own way, though not at all like LaLuna.
And not Elden’s girl, either. But still, I’d saved her from the tree monster. That should count for something.
“Thank you,” the girl said. “You saved me.”
She opened her arms wide, and I rushed forward into them like a fool.
A half second before we touched, a blast of blue fire slammed into the girl’s torso, sending her reeling. I spun to see LaLuna behind me in an attack position, blue fire dancing around her fingertips.
“Leave him alone, spirit!” LaLuna demanded. “He’s my charge.”
The girl shrieked, and I saw several rows of sharp, pointy teeth in her otherwise human-shaped mouth. Her eyes darkened, and her fingers grew in length and morphed until they looked like small, pointy tree roots. She raised one hand menacingly in the air, but LaLuna let another blue fireball loose, and the strange creature turned and ran away, deeming me no longer worth the effort.
“Are you okay?” LaLuna asked, huffing to catch her breath as she made her way over to me.
“You... you saved me from that... thing,” I said incredulously, coughing a little from the recent exertion. That drowning number had really knocked me off my game. “Thank you.”
“It is nothing, Damian. You saved me at the bar. Consider us even.” She cracked a smile at me and let her hands drop to her sides as the fire faded away to nothing. “Still, I did warn you that the fae realm is a dangerous place.”
“True.” I dusted myself off a little and flashed her a big grin.
“Don’t trust your senses out here in the woods, and don’t go chasing after any other damsels in distress,” she implored. “Nothing is as it seems, and anything can kill you.”
“Valid point,” I said, thinking about just how close I’d come to letting that spirit, as LaLuna had called it, eat me just a moment ago. It was a marvel to think about. An entire world that wanted to eat me. It just might be enough to overpower my own innate luck.
Maybe.
“But you gotta admit, that’s prett
y badass,” I said, beaming at her.
“Badass?” She squinted at me. “I do not think you understand the danger you are in, Sir Damian.”
I clapped her on the back. “Oh, I understand all right. I just don’t mind it as much as most people would.”
LaLuna shook her head softly. “You are a strange one, Sir Damian.” She sucked in a breath. “Still, we should get going swiftly. Any use of my magic, no matter how slight, could potentially alert the fae to my presence now that we’re in my world. I would not want to run into those troll bruisers again.”
Now that, I could agree with. “Lead the way, then. And this time, I promise I’ll do my best not to get distracted.”
That seemed to pacify her a little bit. She grabbed my hand and led me back to the path. We walked along it for several minutes, her holding tight onto me and glancing over her shoulder every few minutes like I was a helpless child. I didn’t blame her one bit for her over-protective impulses. Apparently, I was hard to look after.
I heard a few more strange cries as we made our way down the narrow path through the jungle, heading generally in a westerly direction, but I paid them no heed this time. One evil spirit trying to eat me was enough for one day.
Besides, if I was to go out in the fae realm, I’d still want it to be something a little more spectacular. Dying to a dozen evil spirits, maybe, or to a dozen ogres. But mostly, I wasn’t ready to leave LaLuna’s side yet. And there was the whole bit where I’d promised to protect her. Couldn’t very well do that as demon food, now could I?
Half an hour later or so, the cries from evil spirits died down as they seemed to get the message that I was no longer going to go run after them, and LaLuna finally let my hand go. I immediately wiped it on my shirt, then regretted it. I’d almost forgotten I was still soaked from head to toe. There’d be no relief from sweaty palms just yet.
The trees started to thin out a few minutes later, growing shorter and further apart, until they finally broke, and we found ourselves on a tiny dirt path that wound around lush, green hills filled with all kinds of flowers, including some I’d never seen before.