by Rex Hazelton
“Forgive me for the oversight. My name is Lylah. But I think you already know that.”
Kaylan laughed nervously as he replied, "It seems I don’t know much of anything right now. And why would I know your name?” Kaylan knew this was a stupid question even before he finished asking it.
“Whenever you visit Mythoria, I see you looking at me.” The waterkynd’s laughter sounded like a cheerful brook skipping merrily along. “I just figured you would know it is all. I know yours.”
Kaylan's face went red. Though quiet by nature, he had never been accused of being shy. He could speak his mind before king or kin with equal ease. But now he was undone by the Mythorian who looked like a vision of ethereal loveliness as she approached him: his powers of reasoning had fled; his survival instincts were barely holding on.
By all that is holy, Kaylan thought, she’s beautiful. This was true, he acknowledged, even when the waterkynd changed forms from liquid to vapor.
When she came and sat down beside him, his normally controlled demeanor finally broke entirely, and he stammered like a besotted school boy. “I have noticed you before. And I admit: I should've found out what you name was. I don’t know what I was thinking to have not done this. I… I… I…” Then he ran his hand through his shoulder length hair and huffed air out of his mouth in apparent exasperation.
After closing his eyes and calming himself, he waited until he could speak with some semblance of grace. But when he opened his eyes, he discovered that he was looking straight into the waterkynd’s face, that shone like polished silver reflecting starlight, and he cursed. “Ashes, you’re making me feel like a fool.”
“By sitting beside you?”
“NO,” Kaylan unceremoniously blurted out. “I’d feel this way even if you were still standing. It’s because you’re here... alone... with me, I guess. There’s no one to shield me from you and give me a reason to divert my eyes.”
“You need to be protected from me?”
“Well… yes! Look at me.” Kaylan laughed over his predicament. “You obviously have a strong affect on me.”
“Why do you think that is?” The Mythorian was having genuine fun now.
“I don’t know,” Kaylan said as he searched his feelings. “I think I must like you… I guess, though I don’t know you, not really. I’m attracted to you, I know that now, in a way I’ve not been attracted to another woman.”
“But I’m not a woman.”
“Oh… I’d say you are.” Kaylan’s hands were sweating now that he had made his admission, for it was apparent that this moment was important to him.
“You’re right. I am a female by human definition. But I’m not human.”
“And there’s the problem.” Kaylan was breathing evenly know, though he still found it hard to swallow. His composure was returning. The calm demeanor, he once thought was unassailable, was slipping back into place. “I’m attracted to a waterkynd that I don’t even know.”
“Let me put you at ease.” Lylah spoke with the same calmness Kaylan was now exhibiting. “I’m attracted to you as well.” Then she leaned in and kissed Kaylan, lightly laughing the moment after she did. And when her lips touched his, a piece of the magic that dwelled in her soul broke off and pierced the young man’s heart.
Little did Kaylan know that that was the first of many kisses to come. The inexplicable attraction that drew the two together stood the test of time. It wasn’t a fluke. Nor was it a passing infatuation.
“I was thinking about my father,” Kaylan answered the waterkynd's intital question when the kiss ended.
“And all I had to do was kiss you to get you to answer my question.”Lylah laughed again as she spoke. “Why were you thinking about your father?”
“Why do you want to know?”
“The look on your face made me want to know.” The Mythorian’s voice became almost as quiet as falling snow now. “You looked troubled and in pain”
“Pain?” Kaylan studied Lylah’s face. She’s perceptive, he thought. “Yes, I was feeling pain over my father. But I was also feeling gratitude for all he has done.”
“Please explain.” Lylah smiled and placed a lovely, vaprous hand on Kaylan's arm.
She gives me one kiss and thinks I’ll open my heart to her. Kaylan was already putting up the wall that was a part of his persona. A man removed, he was filled with inscrutable thoughts, so others reasoned. And the less Kaylan said, the more profound they guessed his musings must be. After all... he eschewed human conventions and lived among the elves.
Though the Mythorian female had temporarily broken through the barrier that helped Kaylan maintain a level of comfort in a warl he didn't quite fit in, the breach wouldn’t remain for long. The detachment he felt with the warl he lived in had always put Kaylan on his guard. As a result, he didn’t share his thoughts easily. More often than not, when he did share them, others thought them peculiar. He was a dreamer who learned, over time, to keep his dreams to himself.
This was especially the case with his brothers who looked for opportunities to rib him, and his unique way of looking at things gave them ample opportunity to do so. Kaylan knew it was all in good fun, and that his brothers were just as merciless with each other as they were with him, still they had made his childhood a difficult one.
As was his way, Kaylan was withdrawing behind a familiar wall that had dutifully hidden his thoughts and feelings from others. But before he could complete his retreat, Kaylan had a change of mind. Curiously enough, he found that he wanted to talk to Lylah in ways he had never talked to anyone before, not even to his godfather, Alynd the Elf-Man. He wanted to open up to her, to drop the drawbridge to his inner reflections and let her in, to expose his thoughts and maybe his heart too, to become vulnerable, and he hated being vulnerable.
In the past, this never led to anything good. But Lylah was a Mythorian. The lovely mist-maiden, sitting beside him, was a magical creature whose very existence shattered the limits of what most men thought was possible. Maybe she would be different than the others, Kaylan hoped. Besides, if he kept talking to her, maybe she would kiss him again.
“I feel pain over my father’s absence,” he confided to the enchanting waterkynd.
“Absence? What absence?” Lylah knew that Kaylan’s father was Jeaf Oakenfel, the one who wielded the Hammer of Power, a magical talisman that the wizard Vlad’War had made. How could he, with all the power at his disposal, be absent in a way that made his son worry so for him?
“My father went on a quest I’m not free to talk about and he has been gone for far too long.”
“You fear for his life?”
What was he doing, Kaylan wondered? He was talking about things he was forbidden to speak about even in the most cursory way. Was a second kiss worth betraying the trust that others, who knew about his father’s quest, had placed in him. By speaking as he was, Kaylan could put his father at deeper risk if his words were made known. Was this worth it, just to spend more time with the waterkynd, for this is what he knew he was doing. Sure he wanted to stay with Lylah awhile longer, but couldn’t he talk about other things.
Kaylan was a clever man. He could easily move the conversation in a different direction. But as he searched his heart, he realized he didn’t want to. He wanted to answer the mesmerizing stranger’s question as best as he could. He wanted to tell her precisely the things he was saying.
Kaylan was confounded that he wished the Mythorian knew his deepest thoughts. This was important. Why... for another kiss? Yes, and for much more too.
“Aye, his quest is fraught with danger.”
“And there is no one who can help?”
“No… he went alone.”
Because of the waterkynd’s affinity for magic, she accepted this answer without question, for she understood how unconventional the ways of the supernatural could be. Since Kaylan’s father was the Hammer Bearer, it wasn’t hard to guess that magic was surely involved in his quest. This depth of understanding gave her
enough wisdom to resist prying further. Kaylan would tell her what he wanted her to know and no more, of this she was certain.
Without giving Lylah time to reply, Kaylan added, “I was also taking time to thank my father for accepting the tasks the Warl’s Magic had asked him to undertake.” Kaylan smiled at the Mythorian, wanting to take hold of her hand as he did. “Because of his willingness, he was granted access to Mythoria back in the days before he found the Hammer of Power. Since I had the fortune of being his son, access to your home has now been granted to me. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that.”
Doing what Kaylan lacked the boldness to do, Lylah reached out and took his hand in her own as he spoke.
“Looking down at the silvery, vaporous hand, Kaylan placed his other hand on its glistening surface and added, “And my joy has been magnified by meeting you.”
This admission brought the wall, trying to separate the human and waterkynd, down for good. Kaylan was sure he had found his soulmate that time proved was true. With the finding, a search began to discover a way to breach the gap that lay between the two species. Not a gap created by societal dissimilarities, but a gap that was a result of their essential physical differences. For how could a stone wed a cloud? Or how could a handful of dirt be betrothed to the sky?
This search led to the leap off the cliff's edge.
But today’s leap wasn’t the first they made. There had been one more that the Marta advised them to make, the old woman who was the spiritual leader to the Otrodorians and chief advisor to Alynd the Elf-Man.
Having learned that the turbulent pool of water they were destined to jump into was a doorway the Mythorians used to gain entrance into the other realms they inhabited, Kaylan insisted he and Lylah make the swim that ushered the waterkynd into these places. But this endeavor failed to transport Kaylan out of Mythoria, though Lylah vanished as any waterkynd would once that entered a Pool of Passage.
Even with the best advice Kaylan had gathered from the most capable purveyors of magic found among the elves, griffin, humans, and waterkynd, those few who didn’t think Kaylan’s plans were absurd, he failed to make the passage he so desperately wanted to make.
At the point of despair, fearing that Lylah would be relegated to being his friend and nothing more, Kaylan went to visit his godfather.
Hearing Kaylan's complaint and seeing how important the Mythorian maiden was to the young man, the Marta lifted her eyes to the Elf-Man to get his approval before she spoke. “If the pool won’t let you pass," she said in a matter of fact way, "then force it to.”
“And how will he do that, Mother?" Alynd asked before Kaylan could respond. The Elf-Man came to address the Marta in this way as a show of respect to the old woman, respect she had earned.
“I don’t know. Jump into the fire-blasted water, I would imagine. Hit it with so much force, the portal will have to open up. Kick the door down is the picture that comes to mind.”
Wasn't it just like someone who was numbered among a people who once were called Wild Men by the rest of Nyeg Warl to think that brute force would remedy the situation? But the Marta was no heathen. She was far from being ignorant of magical ways: her knowledge of the esoteric arts had earned her renown even among the Candle Makers; her wisdom had gained their respect. So, Kaylan and Lylah decided to follow her advice.
At first, they jumped from heights that didn’t threaten to crush the human frame. But this proved to be fruitless.
When Kaylan went back to the Marta seeking further guidance, she said, “Have a griffin drop you out of the sky if you have to.”
“But what if the drop kills me?”
“At least your suffering will come to an end. Besides, if you love someone enough, though I can’t understand why a waterkynd would interest you, you’d be willing to risk death to be with them." Incredulous, the Marta shook her head and huffed out a burst of nervous laughter before she asked, "Have you given thought to what might happen to you if you do make it to one of the waterkynd’s other realms? Have you considered that the passage might pose less danger than actually reaching your destination?”
“But the waterkynd are changed,” Kaylan defended the logic he based his decision on. “And so will I.”
“Changed into what? Have you considered that you might be changed into a pile of goo, or that your mind might become addled by the stress of the thing?”
The Marta’s adversarial stance was just a ploy. She wasn’t against the experiment. In truth, she was interested to see what the outcome would be. After all, she hadn’t gained her powers by sitting on her hands. No pain, no birth was an axiom she had built her life on.
In the end, Kaylan and Lylah didn’t need a griffin to drop them out of the sky. On closer inspection, they discovered that there was a crack in the stone wall that gave them a straight shot at the Pool of Passage from the cliff’s highest point. It was almost as if the rough-edged channel had opened up just for them; then patiently waited, time without measure, until the unlikely lovers arrived.
The first jump was monumental.
Chapter 10: To Other Realms
Though Lylah knew she would survive the fall, after all waterkynd didn’t fear such things, Kaylan’s life was at risk. For him, it was literally a leap into the dark, or into the jaws of death as those who thought the venture was foolhardy reasoned. That's why recent days had seen Kaylan traveling around Nyeg Warl visiting friends and family to say a good bye they didn't realize he was saying. Only Alynd and the Marta knew of his plans.
On a night and at a time that only Kaylan and Lylah knew about, the two resolute lovers climbed to the top of the vast, horseshoe–shaped cliff and jumped for the first time. Hand in hand, they fell like stones dropping into a deep well. Striking the pool they were aiming for with the tremendous force their plummeting bodies produced, they were violently thrown into the Realm of Water.
Well, Kaylan was violently thrown into the waiting realm. Lylah’s transition was effortless, though the unusual way she entered the pool, for the Mythorians never lept from such a height nor would they hold hands with a human if they did, quickened the transition. Kaylan, on the other hand, endured pain unimaginable as his body was torn into pieces no larger than grains of sand, and then reassembled into something that fit the paradigm governing the Realm of Water.
Both Kaylan and Lylah had been transformed into large, ribbon-like versions of themselves that swam through an endless sea with other ribbon-like creatures whose varied colors spanned the spectrum of light.
Fish, mammals, seaweed, crustaceans and other creatures similar to those that lived in the seas that covered the Warl of Man were found here, all stretched out like batter being used to make flat cakes; all undulating like banners flying in the wind as they rythmically swam in harmony with the fathomless ocean that filled the Realm of Water. A cloudless sky as deep blue in color as the ocean itself spread out above the boundless ocean filled with water as fresh as anything bubbling out of the springs found in Mythroia. The saltiness of Nyeg Warl’s seas was absent since none of the ocean water evaporated leaving a residue of minerals behind. The amount of liguid remained fixed. Not a drop was ever lost or added.
The time Kaylan and Lylah spent here was delightful. The way they came to know each other was profoundly wonderful. The intimacy they shared was indescribable.
The relationship they had with the creatures living in the Realm of Water was beyond Kaylan’s belief. Unlike the seas that covered Nyeg Warl, this place was inundated with sounds that came from its inhabitants. Instead of the sporadic barking of seals, the occasional mournful cry of a whale, the chirping of a pod of dolphins, or the squaking of a flock of seagulls as it whirled overhead, the Realm of Water resonated with lively voices, laughter, and song; all of which came out of the minds of a myriad of creatures living here, for vocalized language was not needed. In this place, thoughts were exchanged more easily than speech. Songs, sonnets, philosophy, stories, and more flowed directly from the minds that pr
oduced them. The number of minds that a single individual could simultaneously access and comprehend was limitless. On the other hand, the individual could also shut out as many voices as they want and converse with only one individual or no one at all.
Still, Kaylan and Lylah wanted more than the indescribable communion they shared here, and the Realm of Vapor was the place where their desires could be had. But before doing this, the two went back to Mythoria first, rather than going straightway to the Realm of Vapor, as a precaution. They wanted to make certain Kaylan could safely move back and forth between realms. That he would remain himself. Going back to Nyeg Warl would show whether this was the case or not. If he became his former self again, without losing anything that made him who he really was, things would be moving along just as the two had hoped they would.
The passage back to Mythoria was a simple one, for Kaylan’s transformation into something akin to a waterkynd while he was in the Realm of Water, made the transition back to Nyeg Warl nearly painless.
When Kaylan and Lylah arrived in Mythoria, they found a message from Marta waiting for them. In it the Marta talked about a dream she had where she saw Kaylan perish when he jumped into the Pool of Passage all alone. Following this, she urgently advised the two to jump together since the old woman believed Lylah's touch would provide Kaylan’s inherent magic with the information it needed to make certain his transformation paralleled the waterkynd's.
Her assumption was based on things Bacchanor, a shape-shifting wizard whose mastery of the Magic of Friendship enabled him to assume the form of anyone or thing he befriended, had once told Alynd. When changing into a griffin, due to their inimitable relationship with the Warl's Magic, the wizard couldn’t take on the winged lions’ shape unless he was in their presence. Since the waterkynd were at least as magical as the griffin were, the Marta speculated that this might be true with them too. So, based on her dream and things Alynd had told her, she encouraged Kaylan and Lylah to always jump together.