He returned a few moments later, carrying what looked like leather canteens with long straps. He placed them at her feet, grabbed the torch with one hand and her wrist with the other, and started guiding her toward the front of the cavern again. They walked outside, and Galadriel realized that they were in complete darkness as if night had already fallen.
“What does the sky look like?” he asked.
Galadriel looked up and scanned the sky.
“It’s dark,” she said.
“What’s missing?”
She looked at it again, letting her eyes travel across the rich darkness, seeing only the soft glow of the moon. As she watched, even that faint illumination started to fade and realization suddenly occurred to her.
“The stars,” she said softly. “The stars are missing.”
“Yes.”
“But – wait. Maybe it’s just cloudy and we can’t see them.”
Vyker shook his head.
“No,” he said. “They’re gone. That’s why we have to leave.”
“I still don’t understand.”
Vyker turned and started back into the cavern. Galadriel followed close behind to stay within the glow of the torch. When she glanced behind her, she saw that even the milky light of the moon had become almost imperceptible. They walked deeper into the cavern, beyond the water to a small chamber that she hadn’t seen. He walked around her so that his back was to the entrance of the chamber, and she adjusted to face him. Vyker handed her the torch, and she lifted it a little higher to fill the space with as much light as it would provide. She saw him reach into the pouch at his waist that he had gotten so protective over when she touched it and withdraw something.
He opened his hand, and she saw a small, smooth stone resting on his palm. Closing his eyes, Vyker closed his hand over the stone and brought it to his chest. He held it over his heart for a few moments, and then lifted his hand to in front of his face. Opening his eyes, he drew in a breath and then blew onto the stone.
“Blow out the torch,” he whispered.
Galadriel did as he asked, extinguishing the flame. She expected them to be cast into complete darkness. Instead, she found a pale, blue light filling the space. It expanded gradually – a shimmering edge forming around the glowing aura that seemed to originate in his palm. Galadriel took a cautious step forward and looked at the ball of light that hovered above Vyker’s hand. The closer she looked, the more she noticed that it was not just an orb of light. Instead, it was filled with lighter blue and pink streaks and tiny, glittering pinpricks of white light. A dark purple core accentuated these tiny lights and seemed to be gently and slowly swirling within the wider expanse of blue light.
“What is that?” she whispered.
“A newborn galaxy.”
Chapter Sixteen
Galadriel felt breathless.
“A galaxy?” she asked. “Those are stars?”
“Yes,” Vyker said calmly.
“Are those the stars that are supposed to be out in the sky right now?” she asked, looking up at him.
Vyker shook his head.
“No. These are too young to be in the sky yet. I am one of the very few left of my kind. It is our responsibility to create and raise the baby stars, and protect them until they are strong enough to take their place in the sky.”
Galadriel gasped.
“I’ve heard of your species,” she said. “But I thought…”
“That we were just a myth?” he asked.
She nodded.
“Yes. I thought that it was just a story that there was a species that created the stars.”
Vyker nodded and took a flint from his pocket, igniting the torch again before closing his hand over the infant galaxy and placing the stone against his heart again for several seconds. When he opened his hand again, the tiny stars were gone, and he slipped the now-dormant stone back into his pouch.
“There is a reason that the belief in my species being real has faded. The truth is that we are a myth in many of the streams. I only know of two that outside of this one, and soon it will be the same for this one as well. That’s why we have to move on.”
He started out of the room again, and Galadriel followed him, still not comprehending what he was telling her. It was as though she were only getting small bits of information each time he spoke, and she was expected to simply surmise the rest, or trust that he would eventually tell her what she needed to know if she went along with him. She didn’t know which prospect was more frightening for her.
They walked back into the main chamber of the cavern, and Vyker went back to gathering his belongings and filling his bags. Galadriel began to help him, still not sure what was happening around her but understanding that if he believed they needed to go, it was probably in her best interest to go along with him.
As they were packing, she continued to think through what he had told her. His words spun through her mind, twisting and knotting around each other as she tried to make connections that would make sense to her. Suddenly, they seemed to fall into place, the words of another voice coming to blend with them so that the gaps seemed to fill and everything made more sense.
“The streams,” she said softly, thinking of what Rick had said to her. It had felt the same way when he had spoken to her that it did when Vyker spoke. Neither man seemed to tell her everything, but now as their words met in her memory, they came together and realization settled in.
“What?” Vyker asked.
“The streams. They are progressions of reality. The moments of existence and time progress alongside one another. That portal didn’t bring me to a different place; it brought me to a different stream. Even if I could get back to the place where I was, it wouldn’t be the same existence.” She looked around, her heart trembling. “I am in the same place where I was.”
Vyker nodded.
“Just in another concept of reality. Another progression of the moments.”
“But how is the cavern different? If it is the same place, how could the rocks have changed?”
“It is the same place, but not the same moment. Over time, even the biggest of mountains and the deepest of seas can change. Things can happen that take what once seemed unshakable and turn it into something unrecognizable.”
“I am in the past?” she asked.
Vyker gave a short laugh.
“Your past, perhaps. If that is the way that you choose to look at it. In this stream, the moments that you have lived already have yet to exist.”
“But I’ll never exist here,” she said. “Living creatures can’t exist in two streams of existence at the same time.”
“Nothing will exist here again,” he told her. “Very soon, this stream will become uninhabitable and another one will have been destroyed by the enemies of my kind.”
“Where do we go?”
“We have to travel back to my original stream. The portal is quite a distance from here, so we have to be prepared. That creature that attacked you is not the only one of its kind. There will be more, and that means that until we get to the portal, we are in danger. I’m going to need for you to trust me and do everything that I tell you to do. If you don’t, you are going to be putting both of our lives at risk.”
“I will,” Galadriel agreed.
Vyker gathered two of the bags and slung them over his shoulders, picking up a third and draping it across the top of his back and then securing it to the other two bags with straps to keep them all in place. Galadriel picked up the remaining bag and placed it across her back. Vyker took a length of rope and tied it through the straps of the bag so that it was tight across her chest. Though the pressure was almost painful, it helped to relieve some of the weight that was pulling down on her shoulders and back, helping to make her feel stronger so that she was more confident she would be able to manage the load throughout their journey, wherever it might lead.
“Are you ready?” he asked.
> Galadriel nodded, and they started out of the cavern together. He stepped ahead of her into the intense darkness and she realized that the glow of the moon had faded to almost nothingness.
“Why isn’t the moon shining?” she asked.
“The moon’s glow is just reflected starlight,” he told her. “When the stars go, so does all of the light that they produced. The reflected light usually lingers a little bit longer, but it doesn’t last.”
Vyker looked around for a few seconds, holding the torch up high to provide as much illumination into the distance as he could, and then nodded at her. They continued ahead, and then he turned suddenly, putting his back to the direction of the village and the hill, and starting further into the desert. The thought of the creature that attacked her lingered in her mind and Galadriel pulled closer to Vyker. Though she knew that that creature was lying dead in the sand, Vyker had been very clear about the fact that there were many more of them, and that brought a sense of growing fear into her heart.
“If anything should happen,” he said, as if able to hear her thoughts and know what she was afraid of, “there is a blade in the bag on your back. Their most vulnerable point is their stomach. Force the blade in as hard and as far as you can, and then hold it there until they stop struggling. Whatever you do, do not let up. No matter how hard it is, no matter how much it struggles, no matter how sick or scared you feel, you have to keep pushing until it stops moving completely. That is the only way to be sure that it will not come back with an even greater vengeance. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” she said, trying to put as much conviction into the word as she could.
“Good.”
They continued on, Galadriel remaining as close to Vyker as she could without actually touching him. The light from the torch that he held was all the illumination that they had, but it was as if his very presence helped to cut through the intense darkness around them. They had been walking in silence for several minutes when she finally spoke.
“Is the thing that attacked me the species that is responsible for the stars being missing?” she asked cautiously.
She wanted to know more about the thing that had dragged her across the sand, but at the same time she was afraid of what he was going to tell her.
“No,” Vyker responded. “I wish that it were that simple. Unfortunately, it isn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
“The creature that attacked you is a parasite. It feeds off of the darkness that happens when the stars are gone, but they don’t actually take the stars. The one that do are fast, but the parasites are faster. As soon as the light begins to fade, the parasites are already there. If the stars are gone, that means that the desert is swarming with the parasites.”
“But if they are after the darkness, why did they attack me?”
“To get to me.”
Vyker’s voice was tense, and Galadriel felt a shiver move through her. She felt like the words that had formed in her mind were now stuck in her throat, and she couldn’t get them out. Finally, she took a deep breath and forced them past her lips.
“Why do they want to get to you?”
“My stream is protected from the StarKillers. At least for now. I am the only one of my kind that leaves the stream. The parasites know that as long as I am alive, there is a chance for the starlight to return and that I will continue to fight until I find out how to protect my stream and prevent its destruction. If they can get to me, they can destroy me and all of the stars that I carry with me. By doing that, they will also kill the potential for the stream to continue. It will allow the StarKillers to continue, and they will have endless darkness to feed off of for the rest of their existence.”
“If you can create starlight, why don’t you save the streams? Why did you just close off the portals and leave them to shrivel and die?”
“It isn’t just the starlight,” he said. “The StarKillers don’t just show up to kill the stars. Stars are powerful and generally very well protected. They have to be made vulnerable in order for them to get to them and destroy them. Once they are vulnerable, there is nothing that can be done to protect them again. Even if I did raise new stars for that stream, they would be killed immediately, and as long as the portals are open between a dead stream and a living stream, the living stream is accessible to the StarKillers and the parasites. The parasites can thrive in the darkness into perpetuity, but they are dangerous to any who carry the starlight or who they think might guard that light. That’s why they came after you. That one thought that you were my ally and would protect me and the light.”
“I would,” Galadriel said.
The words came out of her mouth without her realizing that she was saying them or what she was saying. He paused and glanced back at her, staring into her eyes as if evaluating her words and their intention. Without responding, he gave a very slight nod and turned back around, continuing on through the dark desert.
****
Galadriel had lost track of the time, allowing her steps to fall into a rhythm that lulled away her thoughts and kept her simply following, when she suddenly felt the sensation of eyes on her again. She tried to keep going, but the feeling continued to creep along the back of her neck and tingle on the skin of her arms, and she rushed up to Vyker’s side.
“They’re here,” she whispered.
“What?” Vyker asked.
“The parasites. They’re here.”
His eyes snapped to her, and she noticed him tense.
“Right before that one attacked me, I could feel him watching me. I can feel it again. I know that they’re here.”
Her voice came out of her in a tense whisper, and she could see her breath in the rapidly cooling air as if the words themselves were crystallizing as she spoke them. The longer that they went on without the light, the colder that the air was getting around them, and the chill only worked to make Galadriel feel more vulnerable and afraid.
“Do you trust me?” Vyker asked.
Galadriel looked at him in the shimmering, shaking illumination of the torch, and realized that she truly had no choice but to trust him. She was alone in the darkness without him, and it was only his strength that was going to get her through, if she had any chance to at all. She nodded.
“Yes.”
“I need you to hold on to that. You are going to have to trust me with everything that you have in you.”
“I will,” she said, feeling more frightened as each moment passed.
“Close your eyes.”
Galadriel followed his command and as soon as her eyelids lowered, she heard him make a sharp blowing sound. When she opened her eyes a moment later, she was met with complete and utter darkness. Vyker had extinguished the torch, taking away their only source of light. She gasped, feeling a sickening wave of fear sweep through her. She reached out, clawing through the air for Vyker to prove that he hadn’t abandoned her. Her hand hit something solid and she clutched at it. Relief eased some of the sharpness of the terror within her, and she stepped closer.
A moment later, though, she realized that she was not feeling the smooth skin that she should have felt if she grabbed onto Vyker’s arm or the soft leather of his vest. Instead, she felt thick, coarse fabric. Her hand tightened as she felt a skeletal hand tighten around her wrist. Cold sweat broke out on her forehead and her heart began to tremble, but she didn’t let go. Her other hand felt for the bag around her chest, and she reached inside, searching for the cold blade that Vyker told her would be inside. She wrapped her fingers around the hilt and pulled it out. She could already feel the pressure of the parasite creature starting to drag her. Taking a deep breath, she pulled the blade out of the bag and plunged it forward.
Chapter Seventeen
The parasite let out a horrifying hiss and for a moment, Galadriel was so afraid she nearly let go, but she remembered what Vyker had said. She had to hold the blade as deep within the stomach of the creature that she coul
d until it stopped moving. Digging her fingers into where she held the creature, she forced the blade harder, hoping that she had driven it into the creature’s stomach and that she would have the strength to hold it in place for as long as she would need to. The creature struggled against her, and she realized that this one was much stronger than the one that had attacked her the first time. She held onto it as hard as she could and put all of her strength into pressing the blade as deeply into it as she possibly could.
“Vyker!” she screamed as she felt herself losing grip on the creature.
“Keep fighting!” his voice yelled to her from somewhere in the depths of the darkness around her.
The sound of the words spurred her forward, and Galadriel let out a grunt as she dug her heels into the ground and forced all of her weight into the hold of the creature. There was a moment when she felt as though the movement was completely futile, and then she felt the thing leaning as if it was finally giving way under the pressure of her body and the dig of the sharp blade in its belly. It was continuing to hiss and groan, but now Galadriel wasn’t afraid of the sound. Instead, she used it as a reminder, helping her to push harder each time that the sound got louder. They tumbled to the ground, and Galadriel launched her body forward so that she could maintain dominance over the creature. Feeling into the darkness with every inch of her body, she determined the outlines of the parasite and positioned herself over him so that she sat on its chest and continued pushing with the blade.
The struggle seemed to go on for hours, but she wouldn’t relent. She could hear the sound of another of the creatures somewhere near her as Vyker fought it. She remembered what she had said when she told him that she would protect him, and used that to keep her going. Finally, the creature beneath her gave one final growl and arched up as if trying to buck her off of itself. She forced herself back down, and the creature dropped silent and still into the sand. There were a few more seconds of the sounds of scuffling around her, and Galadriel stayed in place until she heard them stop. At last, all she could hear was Vyker’s deep, heavy breathing.
Alien Portals: A SciFi Alien Multiverse Romance Novel Page 10