Beyond?

by Andur

  I wait until she has left with the twins and then I cuddle myself into the bed of my new home. Not being able to sleep I continue to think of my mother and father. How could they both leave me alone like that? Why did they have to die by the hands of those southerners!

  My eyes wander throughout the room. It's nice and tidy, but not as big as my old one. As a single child I had my mother's full attention. I guess that's going to end now. I sniff and try to keep the tears at bay.

  After a while the door to my room creaks suddenly and opens just a little. I see a little light from the corridor outside and something scurries into my room. The door closes shut with a bam!

  No way! Do they have monsters in this mansion!? The first two floors are off limits to me, are there some kinds of wicked experiments going on there? Or ghosts? Are they the black magicians my mother was always warning me of?

  Pulling the blanket higher I back off into the centre of my bed. Suddenly two pairs of golden-silver, glowing eyes appear at the edge of the bed. “Hiii.” Pulling the blanket over my mouth I let out a muffled scream as two small shadows jump onto me. After a moment of shock I realize that the eyes belong to the twins and that they are hugging me from both sides.

  Moments later they start snoring with glee. I simply lie there, not knowing what to do and too itchy to sleep. I am also too afraid to move. What's wrong with those toddlers to sneak through the mansion so late at night?

  After a long time the tiredness overwhelms me and I finally fall asleep.

  Free City States of Nict, Capital

  Stella

  I tug at Azir's clothes and whisper while we are watching the sleeping Zana with the twins at her side. “Aren't they cute?” Apparently they made their way to our new addition to the family and snuggled up to her.

  “Yeah, cute. We have to do something about their unnerving mobility, but it might not be so bad that they chose her as their new sleeping pillow.” Azir yawns and closes the door carefully. “If they sleep with her, then it means more together time for us. Right?” His eyes light up.

  “You'll never change.” I sigh and walk back down the corridor to the kitchen. “Though I wish that you could undo her mother's death.”

  “I hate to say it, but it's unlikely that I could've saved her even with my clock.” Azir follows me closely. “The time reversal spell is limited in how far you can rewind time and my clock only allows protection inside a certain time frame. Even if I cast time reversal several times in direct succession, the clock wouldn't protect me if I go back further than an hour.”

  “So you can't save her at this point in time any more.” I press my lips together and try to swallow the bad news. “Then we have to be good parents for her!”

  Azir grabs my tail and starts playing with it. “Are you sure that you don't want to do something else right now?”

  I try to protect my appendage from his advances. “Stop that! What if they wake up?” But he doesn't let go and puts the tip into his mouth instead.

  A shudder runs down my spine and I let out a small, muffled shriek which I try to suppress with my hands over my mouth. “Cheater! Don't go for the weak spot.”

  He shoulders me and carries me off towards our bedroom, not letting go of my tail and touching me at an inappropriate place! I'll pay it back to him at some point! My revenge will be so horrible! I promise! A lifetime isn't enough to punish him for how he is treating me.

  If it wouldn't feel so good!

  Free City States of Nict, Capital

  Jeremiah Draco

  I am in a small, dark cell and only a little hole in the ceiling is shedding some light. How can they do something like this to their ancestor? Sealing my powers wasn't enough, they even threw me into this dirty hole.

  Have they forgotten about me? Helen stopped paying me visits long ago, but now even this Lucas character isn't showing up any more. They are treating me like a mass murderer. I am the Saviour!

  The only one who pays a little attention to me is the gaoler who sees to it that I don't die of thirst or hunger. If my brother could see me like this he would laugh for sure. I stand over my pee bucket and release myself with all my might.

  Time to continue with my plan. “HEEEEEYY!” I call for the guard who is almost always at my door.

  The small shutter on the door opens and the eyes of the guard peek into my cell. “Shut up. What is it?”

  I hurry to get the bucket at the corner of my cell. “My pee bucket is full.” I hold it out to the guard.

  “Wäh! Don't sprinkle that around you senile old man!” The voice from the other side of the door answers disgusted. “Push it through the port and I'll deal with it.”

  I do as told and push the bucket through the small hole under the door. It's the same one through which I get my food.

  The bucket disappears and I press my ear to the door, listening to the slowly fading curses of the guard. When his curses aren't noticeable any more I start sanding the magical shackles on my hands against the rough stonewall of my cell. The only reason why I am still here is that they are sealing my powers.

  Working like a madman I give everything I have while I am counting the seconds. The scratching sounds are loud and annoying, so my only chance to do this is while the guard is away. “... twenty three, twenty four, twenty five.”

  I return to my listening post at the cell's door. The guard's returning steps echo through the corridor just a few moments later. Everything went as planned and he didn't find out this time either. My worst fear is that he is generally a slow one and might return too fast one day.

  If he hears the scratches, they might decide to investigate what I am doing inside my cell.

  Returning to the small hole which sheds me some light, I inspect the few new scratches on my magical shackles. Tears of joy well up in my eyes.

  If I continue doing this once or twice each day it's just a matter of years until I get to be free again!

  89. ~Research methods.~

  “The verdebret is a small, furry animal which lives in Quinn's deep valleys. It's one of the few animals on this world which doesn't lay eggs. A long, bushy tail and a very cute appearance with big eyes are their trademark. But woe betide he who dares to underestimate it because of its cuteness.

  The verdebret is a carnivore with a very strong paralysing poison and they live in groups of up to a hundred individuals. Once the victim gets bitten, it becomes unable to move but still feels and hears everything around it.

  Being nibbled to death by a family of verdebrets is the worst death which can befall you on this continent. They are very clean animals and work their way down to your bones if nobody finds you in time.”

  -Traveller

  Free City States of Nict, Capital

  Azir

  Something isn't right. Pearls of sweat gather on my forehead as I try to solve the problem which is presenting itself to me. Today I have three pairs of eyes watching me. This change of circumstances is disrupting my training schedule for the twins and I am not entirely sure on how to involve Zana into my equation. “Hrm. Let's continue with letters and writing. You already know how to write, Zana?”

  The little girl who is sitting between the twins shakes her head and I sigh in relief. That means I don't have to change my schedule. “Then we will continue with the lessons as planned.” I hold my lesson as normal until I realize that Zana is looking like a lost child. “Is there a problem, Zana?”

  Sariel raises her hand slowly and I focus my gaze on her instead. “Letters! Again.” She smiles and is very proud of herself for having found the problem.

  The twins made great progress in terms of language. They already use a wide range of words, though forming complete sentences is still too hard. If I have to guess, then I would say that their vocabulary contains about two hundred words at this point.

  “Sorry.” Zana is sitting there with tears in her eyes. She should be entering school the next semester.

  “It's okay. We simply have to go from the
beginning to give you a little head start for school.” I clean the chalkboard of what I wrote earlier. “You'll see that everything is a lot easier once you enter school.”

  Starting the lessons from the beginning is a little set back for Zadkiel and Sariel, but they still have time until they are five. If Zana knows the basic stuff already, she'll have more time for finding friends. That means less trouble for me.

  After an hour I decide that the attention of the kids should be at its limit and I stop the lesson. “How about taking a look at Ivy's quarters?” They cheer and we head out.

  I place the kids in Ivy's care and make my way to Stella's laboratory. She said that she had a lot of work to do, so I want to know what's so important.

  Opening the door I already hear strange noises from the workroom. A few careful steps take me there and I peek inside.

  Stella has a huge animal on her dissection table and I believe that I recognize it. “What the hell do you need a fire lizard for?”

  She turns around with an axe in her hands and looks at me, flabbergasted. “Nothing special. I just needed a few parts from it for my research.”

  I squint my eyes. “What research? And what do you need that axe for?”

  Stella swings the axe at the lizard's hide, but the thick leathery skin absorbs the impact and the scales prevent any damage from cutting. “I bought this corpse from hunters to increase my own skill at transformation. Once I find out on how to create a skin like that on myself I'll be a lot stronger.”

  “Skin on yourself? You can already turn your skin to steel, what do you need these scales for?” I ask, wondering about her goal.

  She continues to work on the corpse, but her axe doesn't have much effect. “Turning my body into steel is unpleasant and clunky. It requires great concentration to move the steel parts in synchronisation with the flesh ones.”

  Finally her axe bites into a gap between the scales and she draws blood for the first time. But even from that point on it seems like hard work to open the wound further. “If I could change my skin into the hide of the fire lizard it would free my concentration from other things. As you see the fire lizard's defence may be even better than having a thin skin of steel.”

  “I see.” So she is planning to increase her own strength. “Aren't you already strong enough?”

  Stella looks at me with a killing glance and continues her work. “You are always running off to throw yourself in danger when the situation gets dire. I won't allow that any more. For that purpose I'll research the most dangerous animals on this planet and try to copy their strengths.”

  “Haha... I see.” What a high ambition. “How did the hunters even kill that thing if it is that strong. There weren't any wounds on it before you started your... work.”

  “They trapped it in a hole with water and drowned it. That's pretty much the only possibility to kill a fire lizard. Assuming you don't want to be burned to a crisp.” Another swing of her axe finally opens the fire lizard's hide. I don't fail to notice that the repeated swings of the axe didn't damage the scales in the least. The weak point was the leathery skin beneath them. Stella hurries to catch some of the blood in a bottle. “Tonight we'll have lizard soup! And liver with potatoes.”

  “No, thank you. I'll go with a salad.” There is no need for me to eat liver any more.

  “But you could try to be a good example for Zadkiel.” Stella smirks and opens the fire lizard further. “Have you heard anything new about the southern nations?”

  I retreat from the stench of the dead animal. “Their attack on Penta and Tri caused a lot of damage to the cities. In Penta they managed to break the city's wall, but the flying fortress arrived soon afterwards and stopped them.

  The military is thinking about attacking the cities of the southern nations which are close to our border. It's intended as some kind of retaliation.”

  Stella stops her work for a moment. “But don't they recognize that attack on civil centres would lead to even more bad blood between our nations?”

  I don't think that the military command cares about that. “You are certainly right, but as you have seen the enemy is perfectly willing to use even totally untrained farmers by controlling their minds. The villages we are talking about are mostly empty and the military intends to use that chance to create a no man's land between us and them.”

  “They already had great trouble to march their armies to our cities. If we force their starting point even further away from our cities we don't have to worry about strikes at our industrial centres. There is also the point about Lucas trying to cause a civil war between the southern nations.”

  Stella growls. “Father tried for so long to create a lasting peace between them and us.”

  “Only that their current leaders are in cahoots with our enemy. If he succeeds we may have our hands free enough to think about attacking the second continent.”

  “We can't even subdue the southern nations. How can we think about moving our forces to the second continent?” Stella shakes her head in wonder.

  “I am not proposing to conquer a continent. It would be more about creating a force powerful enough to go there and gather information. If we get help from Dwem and Quinn this could work out. Once we get viable information about Jeremiah's brother, we attack them with the sole purpose of killing him.” Ivy is already working on new spying devices for that purpose.

  “You are hoping that the snake will stop acting without a head?” Stella starts gutting the fire lizard.

  “It's our best bet. Somehow I can't believe that the whole second continent is as unified as it seems. We have to remove their means of control.” I reply.

  “You are thinking about the amulet?” Stella asks.

  “What else could it be that gives them so much control. I am sure that Jeremiah's brother is using it to control everyone of importance.” If not the whole population. The images of our drones are painting a very dark picture.

  Stella nods and stands up, licking her bloody fingers.

  My eyes widen. “Stel? Did you just...”

  She looks at me with a question mark above her head. “Oh. Did you never drink the blood of a fire lizard? It's a delicacy, you want some?” She offers me the bottle with blood.

  “No, thank you.” I pull a grimace and decline with my hand. When I am about to starve I am not a picky eater. I have proven that already several times in my previous life, but this is a little different. I am not starving and in the kitchen above me is a collection of the finest foods I can think of.

  Stella shrugs her shoulders and takes a sip from the blood. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained. It's your loss.”

  90. ~The other side.~

  “Skiing in Dwem! Book your own adventure in Dwem's high mountains. We see to all your needs and provide an experienced guide. He will show you the crystalline mountain, our capital. Then you get to see the Vaigard Cliff, where half the mountain top broke off. Now we have a nice wellness hotel up there and after spending a night we ski down to the foot of the mountain and explore the icy caves beneath it. If you want we take you on a yeti hunt and show you the wildlife of Dwem. Adventure holidays in Dwem are becoming very popular. Spend a week which you'll never forget!”

  -Random Flyer

  Second Continent, Jont-Capital

  Serenzar Draco

  “When will the fleet be ready?” I walk along the port and watch the countless anchoring black ships.

  My new head priest bows and answers with a stuttering voice. “Th... th... They aren't ready yet. It's a huge task to ship your army across the sea.” He holds his documents in front of his chest as if that would shield him from my wrath.

  I sigh. Losing my old head priest wasn't a happy experience. It's not like I would care for the loss of a single, short-lived ant. Who cares if they reach the age of sixty or seventy? It's more like losing the shirt you like the most and then asking yourself if you'll ever find one as silky.

  “Listen. I just want them to ship a few spies
to the main continent. Obviously there is something going on that wasn't within my plans.” I explain it to the fool in order to clear up his misunderstanding. “You'll search for our most loyal and devoted individuals. See to it that they also have the proper training. Then they'll infiltrate them on every possible level.”

  “Oh, in that case they can depart immediately. But our attempts at getting spies into Nict's society all failed so far. Why should it be different this time?” He asks.

  “Are you questioning your god?” I squint my eyes and focus him with my eyes. Do I have to explain everything to this one? My old head priest had at least some intelligence to think for himself. I should look for a replacement in time. If I get a raging fit I might break the new fool who replaced him.

  “N... no!” He pales even further.

  “We are abandoning our low profile approach. So far it worked because the main continent didn't even notice our existence, but the flow of information is clearly too limited. Use the official channels to find out what's going on. Contact our puppets in the southern nations and the north directly. Try to find out if there are any surviving operatives in Quinn, Nict or Dwem.” I massage my forehead. There is no reason to make this harder than it is. He is new to the job and nervous. I have to give him a month or two. “How are the development projects going.”

  My head priest's face lights up. “They are running smoothly. The schooling of the younger generations is going well and the death-toll due to sickness is as low as never. The general populace loves you.”

  I nod and grumble. “Good. A good society needs happy citizens. And the villages which revolted?”

  “They are also running fine. Since you ordered them per godly decree to stop their offensive actions against you, there are much less violent outbreaks.” The head priest shows me another sheet with statistics.

  It's not surprising to me. I decided to stop the resistance against my orders by raw force. There are always people who are unhappy with their rulers. In this case a minority of distant villages refused to act according to my reforms. They were fools who wanted to stick to their old ways, which can be translated as 'We want to keep living in the mud!' and 'We like seeing our children being eaten by wild animals!'.